


Gravitate

by nillian



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate universe Pietro lives, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Asian Character(s), Brainwashing, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), F/M, Inhumans (Marvel), M/M, Multi, Murder-Suicide, Original Character(s), Pansexual Character, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Slow Burn, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-06-09 18:52:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6919027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nillian/pseuds/nillian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After what happened in Greece, Vivian (Val) Dang escaped the country and tried to elude her newfound powers. Being an Inhuman sets a target on your head for shady organizations to get you, and the world would call these organizations terrorists. She didn't know how to hide in plain sight except for what they teach you in spy movies. </p><p>Fortunately, she meets Bucky Barnes who was hiding in Romania from his own past and they strike a mutual deal. He would teach Val how to protect herself and (unknown to her) she would remind him of his scattered past. This unspoken deal transforms into an unbreakable bond between them as they learn that it was hard to turn their backs to solitude once more. </p><p>However, Bucky is pulled into the events of the Avenger's Civil War and Val must deal with her powers by herself.</p><p>~Omniscient POV so it switches around.</p><p>This story takes place before and after the Captain America: Civil War movie and so, there are spoilers to those who haven't seen the movie. The agents of SHIELD are present (as well as the season three timeline of the show). This work is primarily focused on dealing with PTSD. Also, my character is pansexual; there are other romances and lots of bromances.~</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What Happens in Greece...

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to my friends for sticking with me and reading this over and over and over again. Especially [you](http://baldrdottir.tumblr.com)\- this angst piece of trash gave me ideas and hope always. 
> 
> I am working really hard to make this the best fanfiction that I have ever written and eventually will finish.
> 
> Excuse any errors that you see that I didn't catch and please message me about it so it can be fixed!

The buildings and blurs of people sped past Val as she walked by the sidewalks. She sucked on her bottom lip with her eyebrows knit together, half in worry and half in concentration. There were many people in the streets of Romania that day, and she had to avoid every single one of them. No accidental screw ups. She couldn’t touch people. 

Val narrowly avoided colliding into a couple holding hands in front of her. Just in time, she turned her body to the side and stepped beside the oblivious girls. In another blink of her eye, there were more people in the streets and Val let her bottom lip drop from her teeth. The streets weren’t safe anymore; she had to find a less populated area or else…

She lifted her hand to tug her black baseball hat further down on her head. In front of her, Val stuck close to the walls and turned the corner to an alleyway and the next second, her eye spotted black boots in front of her. She knew that she took the wrong turn. Val shifted her weight to turn back around to the main street but the woman cried out her name, “Vivian? Please don’t go. I’m here to help.”

“Help?” repeated Val weakly. Val glanced at the young Chinese woman over her shoulder. This wasn’t the same person that tailed her back in Greece. No, whoever these people were sent a younger and friendlier face with a smile. 

The woman nodded her head, her short waves moved along with the motion. “Yes, help. My name is Daisy Johnson and I’m an agent of SHIELD.” 

Val’s eyes trailed off to the floor once more. She had heard of that agency before in the news two years ago when an agency of the same name shot down three helicarriers in Washington D.C. SHIELD was said to be a terrorist organization, run by dangerous people, yet there stood Daisy Johnson with a cool, genuine smile on her face. 

Daisy took a step forward while Val thought to herself. She said, “I know that you are going through some changes right now, and you’re scared. It’s okay. I’ve gone through the same thing before; SHIELD is here to help-“

“Oh you have?” Val scoffed at her words. She shook her head, trying to get rid of the hopeful thoughts from her mind. No matter how nice Daisy seemed, she was part of the problem that started in Greece. “You’ve gone through what I have gone through? You’ve been chased through three countries by some terrorist organization?! I’m sorry Daisy, but I’m not going to go with a pretty face to a secret agency that wants to kill me.” 

“Vivian, wait-“

Val’s frustration and anger rocketed and she knew, without a doubt, that her powers would work this time. She thrusted her hand in front of her and let the power charge through. Daisy’s eyes widened to the size of the moon as the fireworks spewed out from Val’s fingertips at Daisy’s adorable boots. Firecrackers went off, multiple ones popping over each other as Daisy yelled in surprise when her shoes caught on fire and Val took this chance to run like hell. 

Val didn’t care at the moment if she touched people. She grabbed onto them instead and pushed them out of her way if they didn’t jump from her path already. They jolted when she touched their flesh- not just in surprise but the spark that ran through their veins. Her arms pulsed with the sound of firecrackers coming off. Val was a beacon of sound. She would have to calm down if she were to get away from SHIELD. 

She made it past two blocks when Val made a sharp turn to another street and she glanced over her shoulder, trying to spot if the agent had followed after her. In the next second, she ran into a man a head taller than her. He carried a bag of clothes in his right hand which he dropped when they collided. Val gripped onto the sides of his arms, clinging onto him with her eyes wide with fear and desperation. Bucky stared back at her, more confused rather than shocked with his gloved left hand on her hip.

She gaped, “Oh my god, I am so sorry! I was- and then she was chasing me- and- how am I not hurting you?” Val cocked her head to the side. 

“No,” he grunted. “I can feel it.” Although he sounded like he was in pain by her touch, his face didn’t register the discomfort that he had felt. Val quickly pulled her hands back and she clenched her fists. Bucky’s eyes wandered over her shoulder. “Someone’s chasing you?” he asked calmly while he picked up his bag of clothes.

“This shady organization has been after me for a week. I haven’t slept in days-“

Bucky’s face hardened and his eyes focused on something behind her. Seeing this, Val’s shoulders slumped and her mouth fell. She released a shaky breath as she turned around to face Daisy Johnson, now accompanied with a partner. Val inched backwards to stand by the stranger’s side. Daisy’s partner was tall, slim and blonde with stubble on his cheeks. His eyes were narrowed and completely focused on Val. Beside him, stood Daisy without her boots, only in socks. She looked less threatening than her partner, Lincoln Campbell- more determined than vengeful. “Vivian…” Daisy spoke slowly and with caution. “We’re the good guys. Just come with us without any more trouble.”

Val’s eyebrow shot up. “More trouble? Great idea!” This time, she used both of her hands, but Lincoln and Daisy were just as quick to counter her strike. What they didn’t expect to see was something else. Val’s palms were open wide as she shot off an intense light to blind their eyes. She didn’t plan to do that, but Val would take whatever she got. 

Daisy and Lincoln stopped to shield their eyes from the light when the man beside Val suddenly grabbed onto Val’s arm and dragged her around another corner to yet another crowded street. He leaned in close and said, “Stay close by my side” once they slowed their pace to a walk in a crowd. 

He dropped his grip on her arm, only to have her reach out for his hand to hold onto. He glanced at her through the corners of his eyes and she met his gaze. She let her shoulders bob. “You said stay close, didn’t you?” 

Bucky didn’t reply to her but, Val understood that he was vaguely annoyed by the situation. She turned her head over her shoulder to check but he hissed at her, “Don’t look, that’s one way to get caught.”

Bewildered, she stared at the side of his face. He had more stubble than Lincoln, it was darker too and the hair went down to halfway of his throat at the middle of his adam’s apple. His long, straight hair spit in the middle of his forehead and framed his stoic face. His jawline was in a sharp square that led to his little butt chin. Val realized, “You’re running too…”

He didn’t return her words and didn’t bother to look at her. The only acknowledgment of his presence was the fact that they were holding hands. His hand. Val’s eyes wandered to their interlocked fingers. His hand was heavy and incredibly cold, even in the gloves that he wore. She lifted a finger to tap on his palm and she felt hard metal respond back to her. Val drew in a breath, but decided that it was best not to ask about it. 

He led her through the crowd, avoiding the citizens of Romania. Together, they walked much like a couple until they came upon a building- the building he was staying in. Once he closed the door behind them, he dropped her hand and nodded up towards the stairs. Val didn’t need to be told twice. She climbed the steps to the cramped apartment while the man trailed after her. He told her the number on his apartment’s door and Val pushed it open. 

The apartment was cramped and a little on the messy side, but not unbearable. There was only an orange mattress on the floor for furniture and a burgundy loveseat in the kitchen. There was a window above the sink and random items scattered throughout the kitchen. Most of it was on the counter or on top of the fridge, and only a few things on his bed. To the right, next to the fridge, was the entrance to the bathroom. Bucky walked past her and set his bag of clothes on the counter. 

He pressed his hands against the counter top and leaned some of his weight forward with his shoulders high and his head low. Val took slow steps towards him and she stood beside him, her palms flat against the countertop while she stared out of the window in front of them. She swallowed. “My name’s Vivian Dang but I prefer Vallia or Val,” she said. “And thank you for helping me out.”

Val had hoped that he would return the favor and give out his name for her, but he never did. Instead, Bucky just slowly blinked, as if he was trying to rid of today’s problems and mistakes with a single blink. It made Val roll her eyes and scowl. She pushed herself away from the countertop and she sank into the loveseat. 

Bucky pressed his chin to his right shoulder as he spoke, “Does it hurt you?”

She lifted an eyebrow at him, clearly wasn’t expecting him to say that of all things. “Yeah, it does. My insides are out, and I’m restless because I’m always sparking fireworks like it’s the goddamn Fourth of July…”

Val heard him rustle through the bag of clothes, where he fished out a black leather jacket with a cotton hood attached to it, a grey shirt with buttons that went halfway down and denim jeans. He walked them over to her in a bundle in his hands and placed them on her lap. “Here, use the shower and put these on.”

With a bored look, she tilted her head at him. “Is this your way of telling me that I smell funny?” 

“Well, no,” he huffed with a shake of his head. He explained, “When you are trying to hide, you have to change the way you do everything. People find you because of your patterns.” 

“So I change being me to being like you?” Val clarified. 

Bucky nodded his head. Then, for a split second- almost too fast for Val to see with her eyes- he had smiled. It was small and quick, more of a quirking of the right side of his lips than an actual smile. Nevertheless, he did it and he joked, “And a little bit smelly.” 

Val’s cheeks paled and she suddenly scooted away from him. “All right, all right, I can take a hint, mister,” she grumbled. 

“No… I’m just… just kidding-“ He struggled for the right words to say, which made Val knit her eyebrows at him with some concern. He paused, and shook his head again, turning away. “Never mind, just go.”

Val frowned at him with her eyes narrowed at his figure but she kept an unnecessary comment to herself. She gathered up his new clothes and marched off to the bathroom. When she shut the door behind her, her first thought: Well that was weird. She didn’t dwell too much on the mystery man. Instead, she pulled back the curtains to the shower and turned it on. She hadn’t had a proper shower since she was in Bulgaria three days ago when she crashed at another home. 

Once the water was warm enough that Val could stand, she stripped down and climbed inside the shower. The water was thick and gently caressed her skin and she tilted her head to water kisses on her face as well. Rather quickly, she washed herself with his soap and rinsed off. After her face was drenched with water, she pressed her forehead against the wall and let tears fall. 

Val wanted to shed a few tears- that was the plan- but she ended up sobbing like a child who lost their favorite toy to a bully. She wheezed and shook and wanted to hold herself so she could ease her pain but she couldn’t feel the comfort. She hastily turned off the shower and stepped out from it. Val reached out for towel and wrapped herself in the cotton before she sat backwards on top of the closed lid of the toilet. She faced the mirror with her eyes red, her lips trembling, and nose scrunched up. 

She could hear the booms of the fireworks before she could see their brilliant light shine. Just below that, were the screams of a young man, helpless in the crossfire. It was all she could think about since she acquired these cursed gifts. She had killed him. Val had killed him. 

Her sobs stopped when she smelt burning hair. She jolted upright and stared at her reflection in the mirror. The ends of her dark, silky curls were caught aflame in a mixture of colors: green, purple, blue as well as orange and red. Val screamed. 

Before she had time to run back into the shower herself, Bucky barged into the bathroom unexpectedly with a towel low on his hips and he was utterly shirtless. Val didn’t even notice him. She pushed herself from the toilet seat and tried to make it to the shower but suddenly her vision clouded and darkened. He was smothering her with his own towel. He patted the towel against the flames until they were nonexistent. 

Val released her breath and let her shoulders drop once she couldn’t feel the heat anymore against her skin. They both could still smell the lingering scent of burnt hair but neither of them commented on it. Val faced him and opened her mouth to thank him once again when her redshot eyes caught sight of something that she didn’t expect to see so soon. She blinked at it and met his eyes. He suddenly snatched his towel from the top of her head and turned away from her to wrap himself up. Val lifted her hand to cover her mouth from laughing but she couldn’t help the cackles coming. Her eyes were squeezed shut and she threw her head back. 

Her laughs soon calmed to small giggles when he finally turned towards her. Val knew right then and there that she should never mention to him how red his cheeks were at that moment and how timid he seemed from her gaze. She would secretly admit that she was a little pink in the face too, but not nearly as embarrassed as him. It took a few seconds for her realize that he stood shirtless in front of her, but she was focused on his left arm. Her laughs ceased and she gaped at the delicately made metal arm. Tentatively, she pressed her fingers against the metal, and lifted his arm. She glanced up at him to see if he would protest about even more touching or if he felt incredibly awkward by it, but he pressed his teeth to the bottom of his lip and darted his eyes away. Val took that as a good enough sign to proceed. She traced her fingers against the cold metal from his shoulder down to his palm, completely entranced by it.

He spoke as if he had practiced these lines over and over for an important play, “James. Buchanan. Barnes,” he barely made his words out from a whisper, “But I’ve been called Bucky before.” Val’s parted lips stretched out to a brilliant smile at their progress and she withdrew from his arm. She turned to gather the clothes he had let her wear from the sink’s counter but she stiffened once she felt him trail a finger along the back of her shoulder blades. She froze, eyes wandering every direction but she never once tried to move away or stop him. It was oddly comforting to be touched in such a way after not being touched at all for days. Bucky ran his finger across the pink surfaces of burns on her back where the fire had rubbed across her skin. She flinched, but only because she was reminded of the burns, the pain. 

“Wet your towel, cover your burns while I’ll take a quick shower and run out to find aloe vera,” Bucky instructed. 

Val picked up the clothes in her hands and walked out of the door while she looked over at him with another small smile on her face to thank him silently. She shut the door behind her and fumbled to change fast before he would get out of the shower. Once she shut the door, she heard the water pelt against the floor of the shower and so she dressed. Instead of putting on his leather jacket since the air felt too hot around her, she just left the grey buttoned shirt on along with the jeans. She noticed that the shirt went just past her butt and she refolded the leather jacket to place it on the edge of the red loveseat. 

Val was grateful for Bucky when he didn’t ask how the fire started. Well, he could easily figure out how, but she felt better when he didn’t bother with asking, as if he understood somehow. But of course, he didn’t and wouldn’t understand these cursed gifts of hers.

She lowered herself to the loveseat and stared ahead of her towards the window where the sun’s lights still shone. Val’s eyes felt heavy and she had to admit that it was a long day, so a nap couldn’t do much harm. She turned on her side, facing the back of the loveseat and shut her eyes, only to see the dead eyes of her brother to greet her. 

Bucky, fully dressed in sweats, opened the bathroom door and peeked his head out first to check is Val was decent. A second later he realized what a stupid thought that was, he had showered for at least three minutes, of course she was decent. 

Bucky pushed the door out wider to see her laying on the loveseat, sound asleep already. He had his old clothes in his hands and he placed them on the kitchen counter to fish his wallet in the pocket of his pants. Bucky neatly folded his clothes and set them aside before he turned towards the entrance. As he left the apartment, he sorted through the money that he pick pocketed and stole. He knew that he had enough to buy the aloe vera. Bucky had to check, which was never a bad thing to do. 

Now that he was out of the presence of Val, he could really think. What happened today shouldn’t have happened, and he knew it. He thought that maybe he should just drop everything and leave Romania there and let Val have his apartment for herself. No, he contradicted himself. That thought didn’t settle right in his stomach so he tossed it aside. 

No, he was going to take care of her. That’s what Steve would do, wouldn’t it? The star spangled man with a plan, America’s golden boy, Steve-

Bucky froze, his jaw clenching. The Star Spangled Man with a plan. Oh, he remembered something like that. It was so vague and it was a blur, but he knew it was a song back then… Bucky went over the words a few times in his mind before he mouthed them out and continued to walk out of the apartment building. Soon, he began to whisper out the lyrics to himself. He stumbled over the words that he didn’t know, but he sang the chorus truly. How did he know this song?

Bucky couldn’t quite paint a picture to the origin of this song yet, but the fact that he knew most of the lyrics filled him with some hope. More memories would come, he was sure of that. He just had to be patient and wait for them.


	2. Agent Compromised

After a potential recruit had gotten away, Daisy wasn’t just mad. She was furious at Coulson and even Lincoln matched her anger but that was for a different reason. He was worried about her when she had caught on fire and ran to her side instantly, abandoning his post but he knew that even Coulson wouldn’t comment on that. Daisy kicked off her boots and didn’t waste another moment chasing down the Inhuman with Lincoln beside her.

When they spotted her with some man with really, really long hair, Daisy and Lincoln didn’t think much of it. How could they have anyways? They didn’t know who stood before them,; who they dealt with. So when Coulson spoke on the comms, warning them to proceed with even more caution- no, better yet abort mission, they were confused. They didn’t ask questions but they focused on recruiting Val. However, she pulled off yet another magic trick and vanished, so were Lincoln’s and Daisy’s spirits.

They returned to the Quinjet with frowns etched on their faces and they both marched towards the front of the plane where May piloted. She had already begun lift off without a word. Lincoln opened up a video feed from the side of the plane where their director’s face showed from his office. “Sir,” Lincoln said, “Abort mission?”

“What the hell was that Coulson?” exclaimed Daisy, coming from Lincoln’s side. “We had her and then you suddenly wanted to abort the mission?”

“You had her?” repeated Coulson. “Well from my perspective, it looked like she fooled you twice and so shame on you.”

Lincoln was quick to defend. “Well, we could have gotten her if our orders weren’t changed. What happened?”

“It’s classified.”

“Classified?” gasped Daisy. “Coulson, really? I thought we were way past this.”

“If it’s classified,” called May with her hands on the controls, “then it is classified.”

Daisy grumbled, “Thanks, May.”

Lincoln continued on without missing a beat. “Sir, I thought that you wanted a team of Inhumans, and we are working on getting you just that. How are we supposed to suddenly stop recruiting when we don’t know why?”

Daisy nodded her head. She leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest. “Who was that guy?”

“That’s the classified part,” announced Coulson. His face conveyed a sympathetic look with his eyebrows raising at a curve and his lips pursed. He knew that the both of them would be unsatisfied with his answer, but that was how the system worked. If everyone knew every secret and the enemy were to get ahold of them… of Daisy… Phil couldn’t have Daisy or any more of his agents compromised. This situation was special. Normally, he would enforce the mission and have the Inhuman taken and treated for, but seeing that he was there… There was no possible way that Phil would let two agents go up against the Winter Soldier. Sooner or later, Daisy would find out, despite his wishes but Phil did not want Daisy to continue with the recruitment of Val if the Winter Soldier was involved.

He ended the call soon after his last words and he turned away from the large monitor on the front wall of his office. He leaned back against his desk and drummed his fingers on the wooden table. Phil glanced down and lifted a brow at his left hand, seeing that he was using that one to tap instead of his right. May had said that he would grow used to his prosthetic but he never thought that it would actually happen.

The Winter Soldier was with an Inhuman, so what should the director of SHIELD do about it? Should Phil alert the Avengers of his presence, since he knew that his favorite childhood hero was searching for his best friend and turned Hydra agent? What would happen to him- to SHIELD- after the Avengers found out that Phil Coulson had died and came back to life?

No, he thought. I shouldn’t do that to them. They had enough on their plate. They had to focus on their job, on what matters: saving the world. Phil Coulson had to focus on his own little task force saving another race on the planet. Vivian Dang would have to survive on her own while in the custody of the Winter Soldier. An agent compromised.

~.~.

It just occurred to him: how was he going to do this? Bucky stopped in front of his apartment door with a bag of aloe vera, some fruits he got from the market, and candy bars that he had gotten strangely addicted to since he had escaped. Bucky’s jaw tightened at his thoughts. Now that he had someone with him, how could he keep a low profile to lower suspicion? Would Hydra come back for Val and find him in the process? He’d have to house arrest the young woman until he could come up with a better plan.

He reached out, pushed the door open and glided through the doorway. Val still slept on the loveseat, she hadn’t moved since he had left to buy more supplies. Bucky stacked the chocolate candy bars on top of the fridge, next to his journal. He opened the fridge to place the fruits inside and picked up the bottle of aloe vera.

Bucky approached the loveseat and lowered himself down to his knees. Hesitantly, he reached out to wake Val, but he pulled his hand away. Maybe he should let her sleep the day and night away; this had to be so new to her. He caught sight of the pink spots of flesh on her neck, just above the collar of his shirt. Bucky couldn’t let her injuries get worse than what they already were. Now... that would make his day even worse.

He shook her arm with his own metal one to avoid getting zapped by whatever her skin radiated. She mumbled something inaudibly and turned her head over her shoulder to look at him. “Hi,” she whispered with her dark eyes droopy.

Bucky didn’t return her greeting but instead tugged at the bottom of her shirt. “Take off your shirt.”

She blinked once, forgetting that he promised to help heal the burns before she had fallen asleep and he had left. Val spotted the bottle of aloe vera in his hands and pursed her lips. “You know, I would strip if you asked with some romance…” Val grumbled with a scoff. She pushed herself up from her sleeping position and pulled her shirt off of her, leaving her skin exposed except for her bra. Val’s back faced Bucky.

Bucky darted his eyes away from her once she mentioned the word strip but once she had stopped moving, he opened the bottle and poured the gel into his palm. He braced himself to get shocked. Before he could touch the burned flesh, Val asked, “You sure you’re okay with this? You don’t have to… I’ll survive.”

“Not with an infected wound you won’t,” he chastised.

"I don't want you to get hurt because of me, though." Her soft was soft this time, very hushed and full of worry.

Bucky wanted to say that he had been hurt far worse than what Val could have offered but he figured that that would lead to even more worry for her. She didn't need to know every detail about him, about his past life. In fact, she was better off not knowing anything at all. To her, James Buchanan Barnes was an American hiding out in Romania for mysterious reasons and they were both better off not knowing more.

The moment he made contact with her skin, he flinched. His shoulders shot up to the sides of his ears because he wasn't expecting the power to be so strong. Bucky concentrated on covering the burns with the soothing gel while the sparks zapped through his veins. He didn't understand why her skin would react in this manner because of her powers. It wasn't electricity flowing through her- it was tiny, microscopic explosions dancing through her.

Bucky didn't realize that he mentioned his idea about her powers out loud until Val laughed. He felt her shoulders come up as she laughed and felt her trail off in a hum. "That’s the way I thought about it actually. When I changed… I could feel everything, like my muscles, my organs, and my atoms especially... I felt everything. I felt like I was dying.” Bucky finished putting the gel on her skin and proceeded to put it away, and he appeared that he was not listening, but Val didn’t seem to care. “Each cell, I think, is exploding and reforming in an incessant cycle because of my powers. There're fireworks going off inside me, man-made supernovas, too strong for anyone else to handle except for you and me.” Without caring if Bucky had spying eyes, Val laid back down on her side, hands pressed beneath her cheek and on top of the loveseat. She watched as Bucky got up and moved some items off of his makeshift bed on the floor. He brushed aside all of the objects to either the floor or the counter. Once he was satisfied with his clean bed, he waltzed over to the fridge to pluck his journal, Val’s eyes trailing after him.

She waited a few minutes, just watching him lean up against the wall while he sat on top of his mattress writing whatever he wanted in his journal. Bucky was aware of her staring, of course, but he didn’t feel any pressure on him, any weight whatsoever. Val finally spoke, “So what happened to your arm?”

“Lost it,” he replied flatly.

Val’s eyes lowered with annoyance at his answer. “So you lost your arm and you get a metal one with a cool little red star on it.”

Bucky never once stopped the flow of his hand as he glided the words he wanted to say across the lines of the journal. “Yep.”

“Okay…” She trailed off again, watching him for a few more minutes before she tried to pry information out of him. “Why are you running away? From whom?”

“Look,” Bucky lifted his eyes from the journal to stare at her with mouth slightly ajar. “I’d rather not talk about me… at all. Don’t ask me questions, don’t try anything.” He sighed, suddenly pulling his eyes off of her and back to his work. It’s better off that you are left in the dark.”

“But James, you’re the only light I see.” That caused him to blink in surprise. He snapped his head towards her, his dark hair following along like a trail of ducklings following their mother to see Val with a smirk on her lips. “I’m sure it’s not that bad-”

“Val,” he tensed up, “just drop it. Go get rest, you’re beat.”

Just on cue, Val had covered her mouth to stifle a yawn. Not even a second later, her eyes widened at him and she pulled her mouth into a frown. “All right, fine, papa bear. When you want to talk, I’m literally right here. The only person around.” Val extended her arm to grab the blanket that was folded and draped on top of the loveseat. She pulled it on her body and covered herself, careful to leave her back bare, despite that part of her body being colder than the rest. “You don’t mind I sleep here, do you?” She remembered to ask right before she closed her eyelids.

Bucky breathed a rough puff of air through his nose, his eyes rolling at her. It would bother him if he didn’t get up and do something about it. So he did, and retrieved her black baseball cap from the top of her head and placed it on the floor in front of her.

Bucky had taken up writing down his thoughts, his memories, and his experiences while he was in hiding. After visiting the Smithsonian Museum and learning about who Captain America was back in the 40s, along with Captain America’s best friend, Sergeant Barnes, he had to keep some record of his own. Sergeant Barnes’s history wasn't necessary there as Bucky had hoped, but he learned this much: they were best friends, nearly inseparable at the time. Then Sergeant Bucky died in battle and Captain America had to face off with Red Skull on his own. Bucky couldn't help but feel guilt riding in once he had read the inscriptions and listened to the museum’s narrator.

Bucky died. What hydra dragged from the ice wasn't Sergeant Barnes, it was their Winter Soldier they had already started on. They gave him an arm and took his memories to do their dirty work. He was wired to kill, yet now the wires were worn and loose, but still there.

A few days after his visit to the museum, he got himself this journal so he would have his own word to trust. Bucky wrote everything down, everything that he could grasp a faint image of. Of course, he had to write about the events of that day since it was a major event that he didn't think would ever happen to him. Val had her place in his journal. Bucky found himself drawing and doodling inside the journal too, sketching out the face of Steve, of Bucky’s hazy parents, and special items that Hydra had him retrieve or things he had before Hydra took him. When he started drawing, Bucky knew that it wasn't just him. He… He remembered that Steve was the one who could draw so well and in so much detail that made the girls coo and him blush. Bucky had begged Steve to teach him, which rather annoyed the scrawny boy since he was finally better than his best friend but Steve gave in and taught him everything that he had learned.

Bucky shaded in the last of the details of Val’s sleeping face beside of a larger, more prominent face of Val smiling at him from earlier. She had smiled at him today, and it came so naturally to her. Bucky just knew that he liked the way her corners pulled up, pale cheeks rounded, and her eyes crinkling. He quietly thanked Steve for teaching him how to draw seventy years ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any questions or just want to talk to me, please contact my [tumblr](http://nilliad.tumblr.com) (because I'm more active on there).


	3. Black Knife

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that I didn't get to update this on Friday! It has been a busy week but here's the chapter now!

Bucky didn't sleep much. He tried his best to avoid sleeping as much as possible because he would be attacked by nightmares and the unwanted memories of his past. He had grown accustomed to sleeping at random hours for a day and going to rest nearly three minutes after he would shut his eyes. Bucky had acquired this skill when he joined the army; he didn't need memories to know that.

He fell asleep an hour after Val and drifted off and stayed asleep for three hours until the chill that loomed over him overpowered Bucky to the point where he was suffocating on it. Bucky sat upright, alert, his fists raised and clenched- to throw a punch at what? The cabinet? Bucky had heard bombs and gunshots just a second ago- where were they now?

Then he heard them again, except that they weren’t bombs or gunshots on the battlefield, it was just Val tossing and turning on the loveseat. She had a tight grip on the blanket around her. She grasped onto the fabric and made her knuckles as pure as white. Her shoulders twitched and she kicked her legs like something had gotten ahold of her. Surrounding Val, every few seconds, darts of white sprang from her body. They were sparks dancing from her- it was amazing the loveseat hadn’t set on fire.

Bucky leapt up from his mattress and raced towards her. It was as if Val had sensed his presence because she leapt up with a yell, “No don’t! Don’t touch me!” Her voice was strained and hoarse and she curled herself in the ball, leaning away from him.

Bucky’s hand recoiled just as the sparks grew to the size of golf balls that zapped too close to Bucky’s face for comfort. Uselessly, he had to watch as Val hugged herself and rocked until the sparks disappeared. Bucky’s jaw clenched and he turned away to clean up his scattered things on the floor instead. “You need to learn control.”

Offended, Val gaped, “I was having a nightmare!”

“Even when you are awake, you have no grip on the wheel,” he continued on as if she hadn't said anything.

“Jeez, you try controlling your emotions!” Val shot him a dirty look with a massive frown on her face. Bucky had stopped reaching down to pick up a bundle of old newspapers to look back at her, nearly dumbfounded. Of course, he didn't show it on his face but he couldn't believe that finally, there was someone who didn't know him.

He unfroze, finished up cleaning the floor. Bucky tossed a few things in the garbage can. Val watched him with her eyes narrowed, more ticked off than what her body language was allowing her to show. Bucky pulled the fridge open, placed his hand on the very top of it so he could have a slight lean against the fridge when he searched for food. Spotting his bag of fruits, he plucked them from the cage of the fridge and walked over to the sink in order to wash it.

Val released her tensed demeanor. She awkwardly spun around on the loveseat to face Bucky and released a sigh. She glanced up, barely in time to catch the sight of a purple ball headed straight towards her. Her hands reacted faster than her head and she reached out to catch the plum in her palms, but she only succeeded in hitting it three times in the air before it finally fell into her grasp and not the floor.

Bucky rolled his eyes. He had a lot of work in front of him to get out from Val. Suddenly, the woman groaned before she took a bite from the plum. “Go put on a shirt before I lose my senses.”

Bucky had long traded his sweatshirt for no shirt when he had gone to bed, but he didn't see how much of a habit it was until Val pointed it out. It had become a habit since he had acquired his freedom from Hydra, almost a luxury to sleep how he wanted and he took it for granted. Bucky grabbed a t-shirt from a drawer in his small wardrobe and pulled it on without a fuss. After he did this, he snatched the half-eaten plum from Val’s mouth. She made a sound that was incomprehensible to anyone that spoke any language on Earth, while her hands wildly spazzed. “How the hell-” she nearly choked.

Val literally had gagged because he took her plum away. This would take awhile…

Bucky opened his mouth to take a leisurely bite from the fruit, his eyes focused on seeing the torture he had put on Val. She narrowed her eyes after she had finished her fit of coughing at him and extended her hand. “Give me back the brain food and I will forgive you.” Brain food? He thought. He took a quick glance at the plum through the corner of his eyes. Bucky cocked his head to the side, and lifted his eyebrows just slightly. Val seemed to recognize his silent question and she elaborated further. “Plums help with Alzheimer's and restore damaged brain cells. And guess who’s feeling pretty damaged today? Guess?”

Oblivious to her little game, Bucky wanted to understand how she came across this random fact. “How do you know this?”

“My mom is a vegetarian,” Val shrugged. “She would go on and on about fun facts about eating healthy and the effects of the lifestyle. If you ask me, cheeseburgers are impossible to give up.” She moved her four fingers as one, pressing the extended fingers to her palm as the signal to come here. “If you would be so kind…”

With a shake of his head, Bucky took yet another bite from the palm. The taste was even sweeter this time now that he knew the truth. He might just buy more of these fruits more often now. Their taste was so vibrant that Bucky knew he couldn’t give that up. He struck a terrible idea that he would probably regret later on in his life. He declared, “You’re going to get it before I eat all of it.” he declared.

“You're joking, right?” Val scoffed, “Why did I bother asking? You never even smile.” To falsify her statement, Bucky pulled on a half-smirk. She only growled from the back of her throat. “That was forced.”

“Even if it was, you’re running out of time.” Another slow and satisfying bite from the plum made her eye twitch. Bucky couldn’t believe how much he could easily annoy her like this. She slapped her hands on her thighs and pushed herself up from the loveseat to approach him with prudence. Val abruptly tried to steal the plum but Bucky’s reflexes were on another level compared to hers. He simply rolled his arm backwards, keeping the plum out of her reach. Val lunged for it yet again, gripping onto his left shoulder in the process, but Bucky simply tossed the plum with indolence into his other hand. Frustrated, she twisted to snatch the plum since it was closer than it was before. Bucky released a huff of air, like a curt laugh when he hurled the plum away from her. Val lifted her head to locate the flying fruit but it somehow flew to his other hand faster than her eyes could follow. Dumfounded, she watched as he took an additional bite.

“H-How did you-?” She gasped.

“You’re slow, sloppy, easy to read.” Bucky put his foot behind him to take a step backwards and to put some space between them. Between his words, he chewed the juicy fruit. “You need to improve your reflexes.”

Val folded her arms across her chest. “By playing catch with a plum?”

“By fighting.”

Her face paled and she suddenly lost her smile. Val had looked the same when she had woken up that morning, sorrowful and terrified. She brushed her hair behind her ear. “No James, I’m not going to purposely try to hurt you or anyone else.”

“Weren’t you just running away from people who wanted to hurt you?”

“Because I killed someone!” she blurted like he was stupid that he didn’t know.

Instead, he sighed with exasperation. “That’s not why they want you; you hold value to them. They don’t care what did before, or what your life was. They take and they use you until you’re not you anymore.” His words were rushed and he stumbled over them when he tried to explain what it was like to be in their custody. Bucky couldn’t put it into words that would make sense to her. “Just learn to defend yourself- let me teach you.”

Val’s blank eyes stared at him and she mumbled, “James… what did they do to you?”

Bucky finished off the plum, uncomfortable that he had said too much to her already and so soon. Val didn’t get frustrated, she didn’t try to rush him. She waited with complete patience for him to proceed, quiet and distraught. He sucked in a breath. “Let me teach you,” he repeated.

Val released a heavy sigh at his words and she turned away to think clearly. As much as Val hated to admit, Bucky had a point to gain the ability to defend herself from the attackers but to what extent? She didn't want any more blood on her hands after what happened in Greece. One small mistake, one small emotional train ride, and she could destroy an entire town of she was really feeling it- what's to say about the people inside?

Yet looking at Bucky, and trying to put the pieces together about him was more of a challenge than deciding. They had Bucky and they did something to him to break him so that he couldn't put himself back together with the same shattered pieces. Val had a feeling that they might do the same to her and she would never be the same afterwards. “Yeah,” she croaked. “All right, I'll learn how to fight, but I'm not killing anyone.”

Bucky opened his mouth to protest, to shout at her that sometimes she would not have a choice to kill someone but he bit his tongue. If he had said that, Val would reject the training just as fast as her hair catching on fire. He had to take what he could get.

He swung the seed of the plum to the trash bin, making it sink without the help of the wall behind it. He faced Val expectedly, only to see her shake her head while her eyes rolled. She strolled over to the kitchen counter and dug through the doors before she pulled out a kitchen knife. Bucky frowned. “We aren’t going to start with those-”

“My hair needs some defending right now.” With that, she stalked off to the bathroom, leaving the door wide open for Bucky to see her face the mirror. She grabbed her long hair that fell to her midsection in her left hand and pushed it over her shoulder before gripping the ends.

Val raised the knife but halted when Bucky called out her name, “Val, stop. What are you doing?”

“My hair is ruined,” She complained, pouting at her reflection. “And I didn’t get to apologize for the burned hair smell yesterday. So, I’m sorry about that, James.”

Bucky lifted his mattress and plucked a black knife from beneath it. Val turned her head and her eyes widened at the sight of a real, actual knife in his hands. He flipped it effortlessly in his hand and presented the handle for Val. She glanced from the sleek blade to his soft blue eyes. Without a word, she switched the kitchen knife with his actual weapon and gathered her dark waves. Val had to say goodbye to her dark to the light brown ombre scheme she had before her hair caught on fire and embrace shorter hair.

She tilted the knife up underneath the handful of hair and moved her hand back and forth like she was working a saw. With Bucky’s pristine knife, it didn’t take that long to chop off the singed hair. Val had cut just to her shoulders, barely scraping past them actually. She let her hair loose, and placed the knife and the long fistful of hair in the trash can. Val fluffed her remaining hair with her hands and stared at her reflection.

It wasn’t Mulan or Rapunzel perfect as Val secretly hoped it would be. It was choppy in premade sectioned off uneven layers. Val swallowed hard, and lifted her head up higher, eyes trailing over her freshly cut ends. She fell unrealistically silent.

Bucky had watched her with high interest as she hacked at her hair. He had thought that made he could cut off his own and get a neat style but Bucky wouldn’t know what to get or where to begin. He would be better off just as he is. He reached out for the knife and stood behind her. Bucky tugged at the strands of her hair and cut through the jagged pieces with the knife to fix them. He remained silent as she did while he worked. Val stared at his reflection in the mirror the entire time. He puckered out his lips in concentration with his eyes narrowed. Bucky lifted his eyes and they met with Val’s for only less than a second before Val’s eyes sight darted away.

Once he had finished his trimming, Val gathered the sinned hair and tossed them in the trash too, quick to avoid him. She stood in the middle of the apartment and slapped her arms to her sides, vaguely annoyed. Bucky poked his head from the inside of his bathroom. “What?” he said.

“I just…” She pursed her lips. “It’s different that’s all.”

Bucky lowered his gaze to the ground and he stepped out from the bathroom. He stumbled over his words, “It’s a- it’s uh, um..” while Val gave him a skeptical eyebrow raise at him. Finally, he sputtered, “Short hair suits you. It’s, uh.. You’re-”

“Don’t die, James.” Val’s mouth twitched to a half smile. “Thank you. And since you can’t say it to me explicitly, I’ll just say it: you’re very, incredibly, ridiculously attractive.”

He pressed his lips together in order to not say something that he was going to regret. Val noticed his slightly flushed cheeks and her smile turned into a quick smirk of satisfaction. Bucky approached her warily, trying to shake off his own nerves and get down to business. He lifted his hands in the form of fists and bent his knees, spreading his legs shoulder width apart. Val watched him for a few seconds before she whispered, “Oh” to herself and tried to mirror his actions. They squared off towards one another and Val managed to keep a straight face.

Bucky relieved himself of the stance and he walked around Val, inspecting her. He took her right hand, unclenched her fist and placed her thumb on the outside. “So you won’t break your thumb,” he explained. She moved her thumb on her other hand and Bucky seemed to approve. Bucky had her go through the motion of a punch. Soon, he had held up his right hand, open and welcoming, for her to take aim at. He went faster the more she hit and coaxed her to not forget about her other hand.

Val followed his every direction, focusing only on hitting his open palm. She would miss sometimes and she would grunt in frustration but Bucky kept his patience and continued to train. After a round of punches were over, Bucky decided to move on to blocking punches instead of delivering them. Bucky showed her to bend her arms in the shape of an L and to drive her arms from across her body but for some reason, Val couldn’t help but to giggle.

“What’s so funny?” Annoyed, Bucky dropped his arms to his sides.

“Well it’s not really funny,” she admitted. “Just admiring the view, that’s all.” Of course, that was the only reason why Val wasn’t a hundred percent committed. Yet Bucky found himself pull on a smile at her flirting antics. Bucky lifted up his arms again and showed her the form again, but she kept giggling. Val reached out towards him and tilted her head to the side. “Can I?” she asked.

He hesitated; he almost didn’t know how to respond to that. Bucky couldn’t remember the last time someone had asked him, if that even happened at all. “Uh… sure.” Val stepped closer to his right side and gingerly placed her fingers on his bicep, but it wasn’t just to check out the guns, but she had been studying a small marking on his arm since she had woken up and saw him shirtless. His t-shirt didn't cover the marking on the top of his bicep was a small, round grey dot that Val wouldn’t have noticed is she wasn’t so distracted. She lightly tapped on the scar and glanced up at him expectantly for an explanation.

Bucky tried to think of one, damn forced himself to. He thought back, trying to recall while his eyes searched the roof. Finally, he opened his mouth. “I… I think it happened when I was at an art class for… for my best friend. I was messing around, not paying attention… waiting for him to be finished and he…” Bucky chuckled. “He got so mad that I said that his drawing looked like crap. He didn’t mean to, though, but he stabbed me with a pencil.”

Val laughed lightly along with him. “The big, bad James brought down by a pencil, huh?”

“Yeah.” His smile slowly faded and his memories continued to progress and take form in his mind. He remembered after Steve had helped him clean up his arm, they heard from a bawling woman that the United States decided to join in World War 2 and that was when everything took a spiral down to hell.

He shook his head, clearing himself of the ruined memory and grabbed Val’s wrists. She lifted her brows up in surprise as he leveled her arms. Bucky let her go and made fists with his hands. “Block me.” And he was down to business again.


	4. Safety

Training was tedious and slow to Val; she had grown bored of their silence as they trained. Soon, they were throwing around kicks and Val lost her balance a few times. He would show her the correct form after she’d fall and laugh her until her stomach squeezed. The day turned into a month of nonstop training that Val swore that Bucky was going delusional.

“So-” Val started to speak as she swiped her leg at his feet, which only prompted Bucky to jump backwards, but he thrusted his fist towards her, hard and fast. Val narrowly missed the opportunity to block him, but she managed to grip onto his wrist, pull him close and jab her knee towards his stomach. “I’ve been thinking about this lately-” she continued to speak even after Bucky crossed his arms together, blocking her drive and used his elbow to strike her. She staggered backwards from the impact, dropping her arms to her sides just from sheer shock, leaving her defenseless. Bucky took this opportunity and sent a series of jabs at her chest. Val squealed, eyes the size of planets, and she hastily brought up her arms up, barely countering them. Bucky snuck past her defenses and sent a blow to her own stomach. She slammed against the wall, out of the air and gasping for breath. Bucky met with her and lifted his metal fist towards her face, signalling her defeat. Val continued the rest of her words in pants, “-when can I leave?” 

Bucky opened his fist and pressed it against the wall beside her face. She knew that he would act like this, so she huffed loudly while she crossed her arms on top of her chest. Bucky loose hair fell to the sides of his face as he leaned down. His ever growing and unshaven stubble covered his clenched, square jaw like it does when he was very annoyed. Bucky stepped off to the side to let Val out of his little cage, but she refused to move. “I get it,” she said with sympathy. “You’re worried about the both of us getting caught outside but I haven’t seen the light of day for a month and I can’t keep up with training- I’m still sore from three days ago when you did this-” She lifted up her shirt to sport the bruise that he had left on her lower stomach. She gasped at the sight of another purple patch of flesh, located higher on her stomach. She groaned bitterly, “James!” 

“Sorry,” he muttered, pulling his lips to a thin line. He pushed back the fallen strands of his dark hair behind his ears and he drew in a deep breath. “It’s not a good idea. You don’t know what’s out there- who’s out there. You’re not ready.”

“James, it’s not like I’m going outside to pick a fight!” 

“It doesn’t matter, they can track us.”

“If they are so good at tracking us and finding us, why haven’t they done it already?” she shot back. Val saw a hint of recognition on his face and she pressed on. “It’s been a little under a month, and they haven’t done anything. They could be on the far end of Russia for all we know. We’re fine as long as we stick together.”

Bucky sighed and pushed himself from the wall. He strode over to the fridge and pulled out a refreshment. A blood red kompot, a Romanian juice that he had gotten from a vender, was filled with the sweetest fruits. He took a long sip from the bottle, eyeing Val the entire time while she rubbed her forehead. He removed the bottle from his lips and gestured it towards her. She had to admit that she felt parched from their constant training so she accepted the kompot and finished the rest of it. 

Val was used to his silent communication with her and his gestures that meant questions for her to answer. He had been unusually quieter than his already quiet self. Whatever was bothering him, he usually didn’t say. He scoffed, “Why do you really want to go out? Is it…?” 

Val blinked, not following after him. “Is it what?” 

Bucky hesitated again. “Me? Am I the reason?” 

Val surged forward and gripped the sides of his arms. “No, no, it’s not you at all, James. I just need fresh air.” 

“There’s fresh air in here.” 

At that moment, Val wasn’t able to tell if Bucky was joking or he was being completely serious. Sure, Bucky could tell a few (really, really, really good) jokes when he felt like it but now wasn’t the time for Comedy Central. “Then how about… we tour Victory Avenue? Yeah? I’ve heard of that when I came to Romania.”

Bucky lifted his eyebrow with surprise. “You want to see Calea Victoriei?”

“Yes! Why not?” Val eagerly bobbed her head. “What’s the point of running away and exploring different countries if we aren’t going to have fun? I want to explore Cal-ea Victoriei-”

“Ca-lea Victoriei,” he corrected her. 

“Ca-lea Victoriei.” She gave him a warm smile. “Which reminds me, could you teach me how to speak Romanian? Honestly, James, there’s so much more we can do together besides just training.” 

“Val… I-I don’t know…”

Bucky was hit with such an adorable force of cuteness when Val gave him one look of her puppy dog eyes. Her eyebrows drew together and she pouted out her bottom lip. Val’s dark brown eyes never left the light of his blue. Bucky cringed, averting his gaze to the ground. “Okay, we can do that.” 

“Thank you, James!” Val threw her arms around Bucky’s shoulders and she pressed her lips against his cheek in a quick peck. She stepped away from Bucky and darted towards the bathroom exclaiming, “I have to get ready!”

“Now?” Bucky followed after her, confused and lost like a young puppy. “And there’s nothing wrong with the way you look.” 

“Maybe.” Val patted her hair down and inspected her reflection in the mirror. “But I’m all sweaty and gross and need a shower. Can you toss me the jacket you gave me?”

.~.~

The swaying rock in her hips made her feel balanced. Her arms swung by her sides and her dyed green hair fell too far in her face, so she tossed her long bangs aside, revealing a scarred right side of her face. That side disappeared once more when the green strands fell over her vision. It was futile, she knew, but it didn’t stop her from whipping her hair back. 

The lights were scattered above her, ceiling lamps that barely held onto electricity. As she walked deeper in the wide and dimly lit hallway, the soldiers dressed in all black, standard combat uniforms worn by almost every army in the world, parted ways for her. They pressed their backs against the walls, straightened their spines and greeted her. “Madame Hydra,” they said in unison. She walked by without a second glance and they continued on their mission. 

The hallway opened up to the command center on her left where her subordinates were scrambling around, trying to make connections to world leaders and rebuild what was left of Hydra. Madame wanted that. She was glad to see that they were working harder and longer to not let the head die off. However, there were more important matters to get through, like getting more… valuable assets. 

Madame Hydra had to admit that Hive was doing all of the work for her, so she would let him continue his work with the Inhumans but he was off fighting a useless war with SHIELD and not focusing on the big picture (okay, sure, he wanted to take over the world but he was a bit preoccupied). 

She went further into their base of operations until the soldiers, scientists and officials became scarcer and the rooms were scattered. Finally, Madame Hydra had reached the door that could rebuild Hydra. With a smirk on her thin lips, she plucked her identity card from the breast pocket of her jade leather jacket. Madame Hydra swiped her card that only allowed her access to the cell. 

Once she was inside, she took a gander of the room that was recently just finished. A steel chair sat in front of a television screen that came with built-in restraints. Madame Hydra slid her pale hand across the top of the steel of the chair, and she could almost feel the power radiate through her veins. 

“Madame Hydra?” a voice squeaked behind her. 

Madame’s eyes snapped open from her hungry daydream and she didn’t bother to face the officer, Bob, that trailed her around and acted like her assistant. 

Bob cleared his throat and continued to speak. “Madame, what should we do about the situation in Romania? Do we proceed or-?”

“No,” she waved her hand off. “Don’t proceed or you’ll ruin everything.”

“But what about the Winter Soldier? The Inhuman that he is with?” he pressed on. Bob had the audacity to step inside the holding cell that Madame had specially designed. “You said that you wanted the Winter Soldier as an asset, but you haven’t done anything yet and soon, the Avengers will find them-”

“You talk an awful lot for an assistant, don’t you?” Madame whirled around and her arms crossed her chest. She raised her head high at Bob with a frown of disapproval. “But I can understand why it is so confusing to you. You simply aren’t competent enough to comprehend what I really want.” 

Bob’s eyes were opened wide with alert and some slight fear. His hands shook from his sides nervously and his lip quivered when he asked, “Well… what do you really want, Madame?” 

“I want to see how the Soldier plays with his little toy,” she announced smugly. “How he can influence her.”

“But what about the Winter Soldier-?”

Madame Hydra rolled her eyes. Exasperated, she rubbed her temples on the sides of her head “There’s nothing left of the Winter Soldier!” she cried. “As long as that blond haired brute still searches for his long lost boyfriend, the Winter Soldier can’t be an asset of Hydra. He has been compromised. However, Vivian-” she paused to release a sigh, “-sorry, Vallia Dang- as she prefers- is not compromised. Her powers may be flashy, and loud, but she can be the face of a new reign of Winter Soldiers. The real fist of Hydra, in fact. She, among other Inhumans that Hive recruits can continue our evolutionary work of totalitarian of the world.” Madame Hydra glowered at her unwanted assistant. “But of course, that would be too confusing for you to understand, would it not?” 

“Uh.” He mumbled, “Y-Yes it would be… too difficult for me.” 

“Now, ensure that there are eyes from all around them.” Madame Hydra made her way towards the door and gripped onto the back of Bob’s bright blond, spiky hair with her nails. With a growl, she commanded, “And don’t let the Avengers know about Miss Dang when they do come for the Soldier.” Bob whimpered from her grasp and she tossed his head backwards, making him stumble and collide into the wall. She marched away with that confident smirk on her lips once more.


	5. Civil War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to upload this chapter early since I am going on vacation this weekend, so I hope you enjoy this early piece!

Bucky didn’t really like it. It wasn’t the first time that he had gone outside since Val came; he would usually go out just to buy something to eat or drink and keep himself on his feet. He never once took Val out because he had attained the fear of getting compromised. He had evaded Hydra for so long now that he couldn’t stop from moving on his toes. He had drifted off in a different world until Val grabbed him and anchored him back to Earth before he could float too far. He looked down at her and she grinned at him, squeezing his glove covered metal hand. Bucky’s dark knife was sheathed on her hip, but Bucky’s long shirt covered the concealed weapon. She pulled her hat lower on her head so that her cut hair peeked out from the rim of the hat.

“All right so… how do I say hello?” Bucky had matched Val’s leisurely walk as they strolled down the streets of Romania. Every so often, Val would release a soft gasp and point at a monument or building with excitement. Bucky couldn’t control himself either during their trip. He smiled along with her, which made Val go hysterical. They had stopped to sit on the edge of a water fountain while the water danced in the air and the people waltzed by in front of them.

Bucky didn’t hesitate to repeat the greeting to her. “Buna.”

“Buna.” Val stifled a giggle with her hand. She pulled her feet up to sit cross-legged on the edge of the fountain and she turned her entire body to face him. Bucky cocked his head to the side at her. Her laugh had faded and she slowly lost the twinkle in her dark eyes to trade it for the cold and seriousness. “There’s something important that I have to ask you.”

“What, Val?”

“Who are you really?” She slid her hand over his thigh to hold his left hand. Val stuttered, “I-I mean, like, where are you from? How did you end up here?”

Bucky’s shoulders tensed up and he quickly averted his eyes from her, almost pulled his hand away from her but he couldn’t bring himself to completely tear himself away from her. “It’s not important.”

“Not important?” Val gasped. “James I’m living with you and I don’t know a thing about you. You-you sleep with a knife underneath your bed like it’s normal; you have this really cool metal arm-” she plucked his glove off from his hand and grasped his hand tightly. “-which helps you feel everything that you touch- no prosthetic can do that! And you know about terrorist governments and you’re hiding away in some European country and you were trained like some kind of a-a-a soldier!” She sighed and pushed her hair behind her ear tiredly. “Some dangerous shit happened to you and it’s following you.”

“You…” Bucky couldn’t finish his thought. He wanted to scream that being with him was the safest place a person like her could be but then he remembered who he was, what he was. He couldn’t have been more wrong. “You can leave then. I understand that you don’t want anything to do with me- I wouldn’t either-”

“God, are you this blind?” Val scoffed with her eyes narrowed. “James, as much as I hate being in the dark, I want everything to do with you. I may not be safe with you, but I feel like I am. I think that I have never felt safer and more secure in my lifetime. Sure, people are hunting us and we live in a crappy apartment-”

“It’s not.”

Val continued, “-a not so crappy apartment, but I have never felt so… so free. After what happened in Greece, I thought I would never smile ever again but you’ve got me grinning like an idiot and laughing.” She groaned once she realized that she was blabbering, talking nonstop. Val interlocked her fingers with the cold metal ones that belonged to Bucky and bored into the icy blue of his eyes. “What I’m saying is: I want to do the same for you, but I want to know you too. And I won’t ever leave you, James, not until you’re happy and not alone.”

Bucky didn’t know how to respond, how he had even felt about it all. He realized that he didn’t have to say anything when Val leaned forward and pressed her head against the crook of his neck. Her fingers still curled around his on top of her lap. Words would have to come later. Now, silence would serve as the answer.

.~

The merchant howled with laughter at Val’s face, turning purple because he couldn’t breathe through his laughs. Val huffed and she smacked Bucky’s arm while he cackled with the merchant. “What did you make me say?!”

Bucky handed the bag of candies over to Val and she snatched it from his grip, which only made him laugh harder at her embarrassment. He faced the market once more to thank him for the sweets and to apologize on Val’s behalf, but to Val, he could have been saying Bitches be crazy, am I right, brother?

The market bid them farewell with a wave of his hand and they turned away to continue on their little shopping trip in the marketplace. Sadly, they didn’t get to walk to Victory Avenue since it was too far when Bucky had asked for directions. Instead, a stroll through a marketplace and touring the goods of the country would suffice. Val dug through the bag and pulled out the foreign candy bars that Bucky promised would be the best chocolate that Val had ever tasted. She pulled open the wrapper and chewed the candy. “Embarrassing me like that was totally worth the chocolate- oh my god.”

“Didn’t I say that you wouldn’t regret it?” chuckled Bucky as he glanced down at her. “Hand me a piece.” So she did and they both shared the pieces of the chocolate with goofy grins on their faces.

Val pulled off her baseball cap and placed it on top of Bucky’s own head, which pressed his long hair down. She tilted her head as she studied his new accessory and she nodded with content. “Yup, I was right. Hats suit you.”

“You don’t need it?” He made an attempt to take it off and hand it back to her but she shook her head.

“No, you look cute, keep it!”

Bucky brushed a few strands of hair out from his face so he could see clearly and decided to leave the hat on for her to enjoy. They walked further along the street and passed by the stands of items. One middle-aged man called out “Bijuterii! Coliere! Bratari! Inele!” or “Jewelry! Necklaces! Bracelets! Rings!” in English. The merchant spotted Bucky’s curious eyes and waved him over. Bucky turned towards Val and leaned closer to her to say, “I’m going to be right back.” Val nodded and she found herself a bench to sit on to finish off the rest of her sweets.

Bucky approached the merchant with his hands stuffed in his jeans and studied the items that lay before him. Many of the jewelry were handmade and the merchant even said that his own wife would construct them by herself. Bucky found the perfect necklace without a moment’s hesitation. Val liked to travel- obvious to Bucky, so he thought that she would like a souvenir to remember Romania. It was a black, beaded necklace with a coin as its pendant. A crown and a ribbon with Romania was imprinted on it. Simple, but Bucky knew that it would look nice on Val. He paid without a second thought and stuffed it in the pocket of his jacket, unseen by the world.

He returned to Val, who just sprang from the bench with chocolate on her lips. She covered her mouth. Her words came out muffled, “I gotta- bathroom- clean- right back-” and she hurried inside a shop next door.

And she had left Bucky completely alone.

The call of “Prune! Am primit tot felul de fructe aici!” Echoed in his ears and he pivoted towards the merchant who yelled. Plums, he thought back to the time when Val said that they help with memory loss. He hadn’t eaten another one of those sweet fruits since he convinced her to train with him. He figured that Val would be less than pleased to play another round of catch the plum.

He made his way over to the merchant and saw the produce laid bare in front of his eyes. Carefully, Bucky plucked a few plums in his gloved left hand and made sure that they were ripe. He pulled a smile on his face, thinking of ways to crank up Val’s and Bucky’s plum game a notch to make her flustered instead of him all of the time. When he turned away from the merchant after thanking him in Romanian, he felt a chill seep through him.

His smile faded and his eyes darted the people around him, trying to locate which eyes were glaring back. He had been in this business for far too long to know when he has been scouted out by some rookie. It was more than a feeling when you’re being watched, it’s a knowing. Knowing that someone is tracking you, knowing that they could be pressed against your back and listening to you. And Bucky had felt it.

~.

“What’s happening?!” shrieked Madame Hydra. “Why did the Soldier leave her? I want eyes on the both of them and I want it now!” She slammed her palms on the table in front of her, demanding something had to be done about these two. The large monitor in front of hers, however, showed live footage from body cams on her tagged agents. The earpiece in her ear connected all of them as one unit.

Today felt too soon for the pickup, yet Madame Hydra didn’t want the operation to be compromised either. This was all she had so far to restore the power of Hydra- all in the hands of some chocolate-mouth-covered girl.

One of her agents reported, “I have eyes on the Falcon.”

“Fuck.” Madame Hydra now gripped on the edge of her table while she leaned toward the monitor. Her eyes darted from each screen and she studied what was happening. Sure enough, she spotted Falcon on the roof of a building with his hand to his ear and his mouth moving. Great, a whole other operation was happening during her own.

“I-I’ve been made!” one cried.

Madame hydra scouted for him and she a growl erupted from her throat, seeing the Winter Soldier who started directly at her agent from across the street. The agent had begun to run away in pure fear. She yelled at him, “Coward!”

This was all the more reason why this plan had to work.

One agent’s voice popped in her ear, “What do we do, Madame?”

That was the question, wasn’t it?

~.

Bucky stood motionless while he let his eyes do all of the work. They studied each person before him for a second or two before they would move onto the next, and the next, all the while cars blurred in front of him, dividing the sidewalks.

Then, he saw the desperation in a man’s eyes and Bucky struck gold. He pressed forward once a few more cars had zoomed past him and cleared up the street. He marched with his fists clenched, one with the bag of plums still in his grasp. The man by the newsstand that was obviously watching Bucky, and he yelped and ran off around the corner. Instead of following him, Bucky reached the newsstand and inspected the scene. He grabbed ahold of the newspaper that the man had in his hands before he fled and lifted it up to read.

The title said his name. “Winter Soldier Câutat Pentru Bombardamentul Din Viena” was underlined in red. In English it read: “Winter Soldier Wanted for Bombing Vienna” and below that was a picture from a security camera of a man dressed in black that was supposed to be him behind a white van. Bucky’s mouth fell and he took a quick gander at the rest of the newspapers there. He pressed his lips together and his jaw clenched.

He was being framed. He was being fleshed out to the open for the whole world to see. Bucky had to leave. It would only be a matter of time before someone recognized him. Bucky should leave the city immediately with Val. He retraced his steps towards the bench but she was gone. Val was gone for more than ten minutes. There was no way of reaching her since she had no phone on her, and neither did Bucky.

He went back to the apartment for two reasons: to see if Val decided to go back to their rendezvous and home since they had lost each other and the second reason to get the one thing he cared about: his backpack. 

His backpack had everything that he had ever dug up about his past life, everything that he needed to be reminded of who he was supposed to be and he wasn’t going to give that up. Bucky figured he would wait for Val to show and they would bolt Romania and run off to… Estonia was somehow the first country that popped into his mind.

What he didn’t expect, however, was to be beaten back.

“Heads up, Cap,” a static voice pierced the thin air in the apartment. “German Special Forces approaching from the south.”

“Understood.”

Bucky, framed in the shadows, watched the man in front of him wearing all blue. His broad shoulders shone pieces of white that the light reflected on. In his hands, the man held a small booklet- Bucky’s journal- which he had opened to a picture of the legendary icon, Captain America.

 

If Steve was here, he must have brought his friends. Here wouldn’t be safe for Val. Bucky had to make this fast so that Val wouldn’t run into this situation with Captain America and the Avengers and whatever the hell Steve is in. More importantly, Bucky couldn’t let her know.

Steve’s head turned as if he had sensed Bucky’s silent presence. He fully turned toward his long-lost best friend, his eyes traveling to study Bucky. He asked, “You know me?”

“You’re Steve. I read about you in a museum.”

~.

Val couldn’t believe that she made a mess of herself like she was a two-year-old child. She rubbed the chocolate from her face with water to help dampen it and she stared at her reflection. She tried her best to adjust her hair and smooth down the edges so her baby hairs weren’t wild and distracting. Pleased, she left the bathroom and thanked the owner of the random restaurant that she ran into in Romanian, grateful to Bucky that he had taught her at least that word and a few others.

Once outside, she waltzed back to the bench where she had sat and left Bucky but he was nowhere to be found. She released an annoyed sigh and began to walk around to try to find him herself. She spotted a merchant that yelled out in Romanian and lifted up jewels in his hands. Val was eighty percent sure that she saw Bucky walk by there before she ran off.

Val didn’t know how to phrase any of her questions in this foreign language and the merchant thrust jewels in her face. She shook her head and pushed them away from her. She used her hands frantically to try to communicate. “Uh- my friend? Have you seen him?” She lifted her hand above her head to show his height. “Tall and um…” Val raked her fingers through her hair. “Long hair wore a hat.” She patted the top of her head and pulled her hand away from her head to try to make a signal for a baseball cap. “Have you seen him?”

God, she must have looked so stupid. The only words that Bucky had taught her so far were: “Hi”, “Bye”, “No”, “Yes”, “Why?”, “What?”, “Thank you”, “Fuck off”- they just wouldn’t suffice for this conversation.

The man blinked at her. “Friend?” he spoke in a thick accent.

“Yes! I mean da!”

“He’s not here right now.” Val’s jaw fell ajar that he spoke so clearly in English. He lowered the jewels in his hands to the table and his eyes never left Val’s. “He abandoned you.”

“Who the-? What?” gasped Val. She felt her feet move before her brain could command them to. She stumbled backward away from the merchant. While her confusion clouded her judgment, she blurted out the Romanian words for “Fuck off”.

Val never felt so stupid. Her optimism and hope caused this. If she had listened to Bucky and stayed with him in the apartment instead of being so greedy… Shit, where’s James? She found herself repeating her thoughts, “Where’s James? What have you done with him?”

“Does it matter?” the middle-aged man pulled a knife from beneath the table. Guns weren’t acceptable in this situation. Madame Hydra wanted Val alive, not bleeding out to death with a discarded bullet. He gripped the table of his jewels and he pulled backward to thrust himself forward and over the table, uncaring about the jewels that scattered to the ground. He leaped straight towards Val, knife in hand, but she reached behind her own back where Bucky’s knife rested on the back of her waistline. She plucked it out just in time to defensively cross her arm in front of her. The attacker’s knife sliced down her forearm and she howled with pain. Val did the only thing that she could do under this amount of stress: kick his crotch.

The man obviously wasn’t expecting a cheap shot like that. He grunted and moved his hands to cover himself like an idiot would do and Val clenched her left hand into a fist and nailed the side of his face. He staggered backward and even fell flat on his bottom in a daze while Val broke out into a sprint.

The people around them retreated from the scene and avoided Val entirely with their eyes wide at the sight of the knife of black. Val clutched onto her gushing arm and she felt the sting of tears form in her eyes and her vision clouded with the water. This pain wasn’t like anything that she had experienced. She had never broken a single bone in her body or injured herself so badly to go to the ER in a hospital before until now.

She kept running and running, even when her stomach screamed at her to stop and take a breather and even when her legs began to shake. She didn’t know if it was fear or Val being so far out of shape that caused her to shake. She had no clue where her feet were taking her, just far away from the attacker as possible. She wanted to find Bucky more than anything, but she didn’t know where to begin looking.

It happened so swiftly and fast. One moment, Val was fleeing for her life, and the next she stood in the middle of a circle of threatening people. They came from the front first, all wearing black and possessed knives and even stun guns on them. Val turned to find an exit to only find that they had also blocked her from the back. They had their weapons lifted at her and had her cornered.

The organizations never came to her like this. They would always send a team of three to four agents and they would try to isolate Val in order to capture her. They never got her because of how erratic her powers were. Each time, she managed to conjure up a new firework show to make her hasty escape. This time was no different.

Val drew in a sharp breath and released all of her emotions. Her fear of what would come to her along with Bucky if they were caught and her anger towards these persistent organizations. Val’s hands produced rays of green and scattered blue zaps that mimicked lightning. Her arm throbbed with the amount of pressure that her powers squeezed from her, yet she extended her arms out and waved them about in a circle. The agents leaped backward to avoid the crackles of fireworks, some even shouted out a cry.


	6. Compliance

Val’s eyes focused on the pale gray ceiling above her. She laid on a bed, waiting for her body to move, but it took her awhile to force herself to get up. She shifted upright and went to grab her arm. Her forearm was bandaged to stop the bleeding and it only pained her when she moved it too quickly.

Val made an attempt to climb off of the bed when a voice from speakers interrupted her. It was a woman. “Hello there, Vallia.”

“Who are you?” Val’s question came out as a nasty spat. She retreated to the edge of her bed and pressed her back against the wall and she tried to find the woman.

“My job values and respects privacy,” the woman said in a sympathetic tone. “So, you can call Madame Hydra, or simply Madame.”

“That’s not weird at all…” mumbled Val under her breath, sure that Madame wasn’t able to hear that. She raised her voice along with her head, “Where am I?”

“Confidential, but not in Romania.”

Val shivered at the mention of the country. She tried to retrace her steps and rewind her roll of memories before she was hunted down. Bucky… What happened to him back there? He had disappeared and he never returned, leaving her to Madame Hydra. Val could only imagine what Bucky might be doing this second. He could be tearing hell apart looking for her and her heart warmed at the hopeful thought. “W-Where is-?”

“Barnes?” Madame interrupted with a slight laugh. “Oh, he is long gone, Vallia.”

And Val’s warm, beating heart froze in an instant and ceased to pound blood into her body. She suddenly felt like she was choking- drowning- just at the thought of him lying lifeless and cold-

“Oh my goodness! You’re acting like I said that he’s- oh-oh. I get it.” Madame Hydra released a loud cackle from her speakers. “No, he’s not dead. At least, not yet anyways.” Val ignored Madame’s second comment about the yet part, but at least she was able to breathe again knowing that he was still pumping blood into his own stream. Madame continued to speak over Val’s thoughts. “Barnes has better things to do at the moment, fighting in a civil war with all of his buddies.”

Val knit her brows together. Hesitantly, she asked, “What are you talking about?”

“Well, I am not surprised that he didn’t mention it to you. It isn’t one of his finest moments.”

Val wanted to yell at her to stop stalling and wasting Val’s time and say something that matters. She was held hostage without a doubt, and she thought that she was taking it fairly well, but Madame Hydra was really testing her at the moment. The only downside to this kidnapping (which surprised Val) was that Madame Hydra didn’t have the decency or the balls to show her face to Val. Madame Hydra kept on talking. “Barnes fought to protect a project called Project Insight which had three armed Helicarriers that were designed to take out potential threats. These Helicarriers could take out a thousand people per minute. Fortunately, Project Insight failed and SHIELD, the organization that made it happen, collapsed inside. SHIELD’s rebuilding, but they won’t possess that power ever again. Barnes escaped justice.”

Madame Hydra let that sink in for Val. Her line went quiet while Val rubbed her hand over her mouth and she repeated Madame Hydra’s words over and over in her mind.

When she deemed that the silence was done, Madame Hydra said, “Barnes is a ghost story. He dates back to World War 2 where he was captured by SHIELD and twisted and modified into the perfect assassin. They call him the Winter Soldier.”

Val was ready to retaliate then and defend Bucky with all her might. Bucky was a lost man that found her and took care of her when no one else did. He was there for her when no one else was…

Yet he slept with a knife underneath his bed and his metal left arm was way too expensive to be just a prosthetic for a man with his lifestyle. Bucky was incredibly evasive about everything that concerned him and Val never saw such sorrowful blue eyes before.

Val hated herself for agreeing with Madame Hydra. He wasn’t the person that Val hoped he would be. SHIELD made him into something else and the only reason how she knew him was because he ran from his crimes. The knife that he gave her slaughtered lives and with today’s technology- the Iron Man technology- she wouldn’t be surprised if his arm was a weapon of mass destruction.

A door opened in front of Val. A silhouette of a woman stood in the frame of the doorway. She stepped forward and Val knew that this was the woman that she talked to, Madame Hydra. She certainly had a look. Her hair went down to her chin and the right side of her face was covered with her green highlights. She wore a pale and faded green vest with long sleeves and a black belt that wrapped around her stomach.

Her name suited her, at least. Madame Hydra reminded Val of Angelina Jolie when she played as Maleficent. Madame Hydra had those shame sharp cheekbones and sharp eyes like a serpent.

Val glowered at Madame Hydra. “What are you going to do with me?”

“I thought that was obvious.” Madame’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “You’re going to stop him.”

~.

“Did you take enough blood?” Val asked with sarcasm laced with her tone. The doctor retrieved the needle from her arm and she rolled down her long sleeve shirt to cover her skin. She watched as the taciturn doctor messed with her equipment and needles full of liquids. Madame Hydra stood beside them with her arms folded across her chest. Val glanced up at the woman. “You never explained why you needed my blood.”

“Tests,” she said. “We have to ensure that you are healthy and keep progress on how your powers affect your body.”

Bob peeked his head through the lab’s doors and he stepped inside once Madame Hydra didn’t chew his head off for interrupting. He straightened his posture and held his hands behind his back. “It’s ready.”

That announcement returned the smile on Madame’s face. She lifted her brows at him expectantly and he presented a vial of purple, bubbling fluid to her. She raised the small vile to her face and peered inside closely. Satisfied, she handed the vial to the doctor.

Uneasy at the sight of it, Val uttered, “Uh… what’s that?”

“I am unable to say unless I have your consent.”

“My consent?” Val repeated, bewildered. “How am I supposed to give you my consent if you won’t even tell me what that is? You could be pumping poison into my body, or something just as lethal. Do I have to remind you what happened in Greece when I got angry?” Val’s dark eyes narrowed at Madame Hydra at the end of her threat.

Madame Hydra flinched at the thought of the dreaded country of Greece. She grabbed the back of Val’s chair and pushed her backward so that she was leaning on the very edge of the legs. Val clutched onto the arms to stabilize her balance, but she didn’t let her eyes stray from Madame Hydra’s. “I need you to be ready,“ Madame Hydra said, "Are you ready to comply?”

“I want to know what I am signing up for.”

It still pained Val to hear the words come out of her mouth. Fate worked so mysteriously. One day she was running from these people, and the next she was willing to work with them- barely. Bucky was out of the equation now- out of the question entirely. He was a terrorist, an assassin that worked for the bad guys and Val was determined to be one of the good guys. These are gifts, she spoke to herself. Gifts that cost lives but are able to save them too. If she was able to save people from the Winter Soldier, then it was what she had to do.

Madame Hydra released a sigh. She eased Val back to a balanced position and nodded her head. “Sorry, I just get so excited to see such potential that I forget Hydra’s customs. We are an organization that fights for peace for the world. There are many factions of Hydra with many leaders, but I lead an independent faction that focuses on… special allies, like you. In fact, you are my only special ally since this faction is just out of the works.”

“And you want your special ally to get rid of a threat,” Val concluded. She struggled to speak the words, “Like… you… you want me to kill the Winter Soldier?”

“You’re not ready for that Project Nova yet.” Madame Hydra’s eyes almost seemed sympathetic. “I want you to be part of Hydra, part of my faction and serve the good of the world. The details about your future mission with the Winter Soldier will be released once you are deemed capable. So… are you ready to comply?”

Val didn’t notice that the female doctor had taken the purple filled vile and extracted the liquid into a thicker needle. Val pressed her lips together in thought first but she caved in. “I’m ready to comply.” The doctor took hold of Val’s head and pushed it so her ear would touch her shoulder and expose her neck. She pressed the needle in the vein in her neck and pushed the purple liquid inside. Val squeezed her eyes shut and her fingers curled into her palm. She tried to suppress a grunt of pain until she couldn’t take it any longer. Once the extraction disappeared into her body completely, she screamed.

~.~.

Val never felt so heavy in her life. It was as if she was carrying the weight of the sky on her shoulders with each step she took. Ever since she had taken the violet liquid (a drug, not doubt) she never felt the same. It was like a constant state of numbness. She was aware of her body and she was able to function, but she couldn’t exactly feel it in her head.

She needed more. Val would work hard every day at the facility and every night, before she would go to bed, they would inject the drug into her system. It hurt a little less each time, but it still made her weak to her knees. Yet she sparred with agents every single day, similar to the way that Bucky had taught her to defend herself. At the very beginning, the agents had to wear protective armor so they wouldn’t get zapped by her unstable skin, but soon, they were bare in their sweats as the drug worked.

Bucky’s knife was returned to her during the third week. She was covered with cuts since then. Learning how to wield and twirl the blade was one of her harder struggles. Not only was it a weapon that she never thought that she would get used to, it was a weapon that stole the lives of innocents.

After a workout one day, she waltzed to Bob, who waited for her to finish and deliver her to Madame Hydra for a report. Val patted her face dry with a hand towel and wrapped it around her shoulders like a scarf. She huffed, “How long have you been Viper’s bitch?”

Bob’s eyes widened and he darted his head to the sides to see if they were alone and the coast was clear. “H-How did you find out of Madame Hydra’s name?”

“Everyone knew her name except me.” Val’s shrugged gave a toss as she picked up a water bottle and chugged a portion of it down. “She’s some Hydra newbie that was finally given a faction when SHIELD fell in D.C. was it? But you didn’t answer me.”

Bob shook his head vigorously and averted his eyes from her. “It doesn’t- I… don’t matter. At least not in this faction. I do my job just everyone else.”

“That sounds boring,” admitted Val. She watched as Bob fidgeted in front of her with a frown. “I mean, you can’t just play happy dog every time Viper asks you something. You must hate some of her orders too, right? I mean I hate that she makes me use this stupid knife.” She plucked the black blade from its sheath from her side pocket. She managed to flip it in the air twice before she caught the blade. Val presented it to Bob while he took a cautious step back from her. She sighed, “She wants me to get rid of him, but she constantly… reminds me of him. It’s confusing.”

Bob’s Adam’s apple quivered as he swallowed. He licked his lips moist and drew in a breath. Choose your words carefully, Madame would say, or your words won’t matter. “It’s important- at least to Madame- to know your enemy. How they talk or move. How they react or know the people that matter to them. Everything. The knife is your reminder of who the enemy is.”

“But I don’t even know the Winter Soldier that well-”

“You’ll know exactly who he is soon. Trust me.” Bob spun around on his heels and called out to her that Madame Hydra would be waiting in her office for Val’s report on her training. He balled up his fists and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to not feel the guilt that made his heart weigh a ton. He had watched Val ever since she had awakened in Greece and since then, he couldn’t help but pity her. Madame’s plan was going to be too much. He knew that it was going to fail no matter how positive she sounded that this would work. Bob wasn’t much of an optimistic anyways. Val wasn’t much of a soldier anyways. She’s a free fighter, a free spirit, a wild animal that Madame was trying to contain.

Try to tame the beast and you get killed.

Bob just had to loosen the reigns that Viper held so tightly on Val. Bob had to release the beast.

~.

Learning the truth was harder than Val wanted to admit. It was harder than using the damn assassin’s knife. It was harder than holding her hands steady to shoot the perfect shot. It was harder than training in combat and real-world situations with no backup.

The third month in, she was seated in front of a monitor in a cold, steel chair. It was impossible to find a comfortable position, so Val didn’t bother to try. She drummed her fingers on the arms of the metal seat while she waited for Madame Hydra to appear. She nervously eyed the built-in restraints on the chair and she decided that she shouldn’t leave her hands to draw too near.

“Excuse me for being late.” Madame Hydra opened the heavy door after she had draped her security ID to the sensor. She shut the door behind her and ran her fingertips on top of the chair behind Val’s head. “I had to meet with some new assets to Hydra. More and more are joining our cause with our promise of you becoming our new fist.”

“Yeah.” Val rolled her eyes. “I go out in the field, get my ass beaten, and I get called the new fist. This is totally what I signed up for.”

Madame chuckled at the sarcasm in Val’s voice. “Your name won’t be The Fist. I have been deciding your name for quite some time now, and I think that Flare would fit nicely. Your powers suit the name and you seem to always go out with a bang.”

Val’s mouth fell ajar at Madame Hydra and the corner of her lip pulled upwards to a smile. “This. This is a close moment between you and I that we are gonna share. Cherish it.”

Val never saw Madame Hydra more annoyed than just now. She scoffed at Val and waltzed in front of her. Madame leaned forward, gripping the edge of the steel chair and she forced Val to move her head back. “Project Nova officially starts now. You will watch these videos and you will learn the truth. Afterward, I’ll give you your mission once you are cleared. Your powers will be needed, so I hope that you’ve been practicing like I have asked.”

Val smashed her mouth together and stared right into Madame’s piercing green ones. “Are you… are you hitting on me? I mean I am flattered and all, and I am totally, oddly attracted to you but I don’t date people… like you…”

“What?” gasped Madame, pulling herself back in the process. “N-No I’m not hitting on you!”

“Well you just always lean super close to me and touch me a lot- one can only assume. And if you’re worried if I am straight, I’m not.”

“I’m not the least concerned about you being straight or not!” she cried. Madame Hydra recoiled from Val and she shook her head. “Flare, I am going to need you comply.”

“I’m complying! Just show me whatever the hell you’re going to show me.”

Madame turned on the monitor with the swipe of her hand. It roared to life and showed a still image of a young man wearing a uniform of a soldier. It was in monochrome colors, meaning that was an old photograph. The young soldier in the photo stared at something far from the camera. A cap covered most of his dark, short hair, but there was no mistaking that jawline or chin. A narrator’s voice began to commentate, “James. Buchanan. Barnes. Best friends since childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield. Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country…”

Madame Hydra pulled the needle of the purple liquid from a pocket on her jacket as Val watched with a clenched jaw and narrowed eyes as the still image of Bucky Barnes changed to a picture of Captain America in action. Val paid Madame no attention as Madame tilted her head to the side to deliver another dosage in her neck like routine. She did notice Madame as the woman took her wrists and secured them in the built-in restraints on the steel chair until after it happened. Confused, Val thrashed in her seat to break free, but the effects of the drug rendered her incapable of fighting back with cause or purpose.

Madame Hydra stepped aside so that Val could have a full view of the monitor as it went in depth of the life and death of James Barnes and the start of the Winter Soldier and every single detail that Hydra had of him.

The Faustus method that one of the leaders of Hydra created for mind control wasn’t good enough for Madame Hydra. It made its victims mindless zombies that only followed orders after the brainwashing. These were people and people thrived off of free will. Madame Hydra had to provide such a luxury, but not too much free will otherwise there would be no point of this persuasive reprogramming.

However, the Faustus method was better than the Winter Soldier program back in the 40s where its recruits would lose their memories. No, Val would keep every memory but the point of view would alter ever so slightly. She would live for Hydra and breathe for herself. She would make decisions by herself for the benefit of Hydra. It would be the perfect balance of control and free will. However, the Winter Soldier program had its benefits with loyal assets, fearless assets even.

For Val, it was pure torture. She never stopped fighting against the restraints. Her mind was so preoccupied with watching and trying to break free, she seemed to temporarily forget that she could attempt to use her powers. She did spark a few times, but that was out of pure frustration and accident. It was hours and hours worth of footage explaining the life of the Winter Soldier and Hydra’s ideals. Hypnotizing techniques were fused inside throughout the entire footage.

Like the Winter Soldier program, Project Nova would require a vocalized code specialized for only her. If Val were to fail and regain more free will than necessary, she would need to be shoved back into place.

The film was over and Val’s brain was rattled from inside out. She had dried tears stained on her cheeks and bags underneath her curved eyes. Her arms shook and her wrists were red from struggling against the constraints. Madame Hydra stood in front of Val and she cleared her throat. “Greece. Road. Brother. Romania. Hope. Absolution. Winter.” At first, Val froze in her spot. After a few seconds of waiting, she slowly lifted her head with her eyes dead cold. She stared straight through Madame Hydra, waiting…

“Are you ready to comply?” Madame Hydra couldn’t help but to release a bit of excitement from the excellent progress that she and her scientists had made in Project Nova.

“Ready to comply.”


	7. Success and Failure

“It worked?” Astonished, Bob peered below them at the training that Val was more than engaged in. She fought like a monster without any hesitation like normal. Every step, punch, and kick were flawless and smooth. He couldn’t believe that only three months ago, she was a nobody in Greece. Madame Hydra stood next to him with a smirk on her lips and a hum in her voice. A scientist wrote down notes on Val as she trained. “How does Project Nova work exactly?”

Madame was more than happy to explain something to him. “Project Nova stimulates the brain and increases dopamines so the subject would become hooked with some help with another element from Hive- secret by the way. They wouldn’t want to disobey. The subject would think that they act with free will but in the end, they would always turn back to Project Nova. Project Nova has some components to the Winter Soldier Program, such as in order to be activated, there must be a code spoken. Once the code is spoken, it has been calculated that the subject would need to receive more Nova by the end of two days -which we need to improve on- otherwise, they would have to suffer withdrawal-”

* * *

 

“Drugs?” Bob scoffed, “Loyalty to Hydra is with drugs from hell?”

Madame groaned. Of course, he wouldn’t recognize the art of the science. “Yes, it acts very much like drugs-”

“Are all of us going to take Nova? Or only our assets?” Bob couldn’t imagine Madame Hydra getting her filthy fingers on any more super-powered people and pulling this bullshit on them.

“That is classified,” Madame said. “And would you call Hive’s persuasive mind control a drug to you? It’s a science that must be dealt with precision. Yes, they get hooked on it but Hive generously gave us his… his parasites that provide his control to combine with our Nova. Nova is an extreme version of Hive’s control. She’ll want what we want because she believes that it is right to her morals, that is what Nova will provide: fierce loyalty. That is until a patient suffers withdrawal.”

Bob let the matter drop. He took another cautious step forward the glass window. Val gripped her knife with her white knuckles coursed with pumping blood. She jabbed the end of the blade through the stomach of her match. The agent fell to the ground, defeated. The armor that they wore protected them from dying but just barely.

Madame Hydra pressed her finger on a button that controlled the microphone. She leaned towards the device and asked, “How do you feel about Bucky Barnes, Flare?”

Val shifted from her fighting stance to a standing position. Her arms dropped to her sides but she still clutched onto the blade. Her body turned towards the viewing booth and she spoke smoothly. “I… cared for him until I found out the truth,” she replied.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Madame Hydra pressed. “How do you feel about Bucky Barnes, now?”

“I feel… I feel disappointment in myself, mostly, that I came to care for a monster like him.” She took a moment to breathe between. “I need to right that wrong and bring Bucky to justice in the eyes of the world. I need to- to eliminate the monster by any means necessary.”

Madame eased herself from the microphone and gave a satisfied look towards Bob. He still felt skeptical of the situation. “Is she capable of killing him yet?”

“She is now.”

~.

T’Challa and his people have been going about this for five months now. Anyone could tell by the exhaustion written on their faces and eyes. He opened his palms, pressed the tips of his fingers together and leaned his face into the space between the opening of his hands. T’Challa had never worn out his leading doctors, scientists, and researchers this much. They complained several times about the ridiculous working hours that he put them through, so T’Challa compromised and cut them more slack all the while he picked up the reigns.

“Your Highness.” Steve’s voice startled T’Challa from his little daze into the next world. He uplifted his head towards the tall Captain and how he presented himself. Steve had been living with T’Challa in Wakanda with his team for five months now and Steve still refused to let down his courtesies. Hopefully, when Bucky wakes up from his slumber, he could talk his friend out of being so damn polite. “It’s time.”

That definitely woke T’Challa. He suddenly felt fully rested and gearing to go as he pushed himself from his desk and followed Steve out of the door. They found their way to Bucky’s cryo chamber without a second thought. Standing in front of the sleeping Winter Soldier himself was a Wakandan woman with a shaved head. She wore all white to cover her body along with the other Wakandan doctors, scientists and researchers. She had her arms folded across her back as she waited for the prince and the Captain to greet her. She bowed to T’Challa. “Your Highness.”

He gave her a curt nod, acknowledging her manners. Dr. Koya didn’t waste another second. “We believe that with your latest solution paired with our own version could work this time.”

“What are the chances?” T’Challa asked her.

“Forty-eight.”

Steve turned to face Bucky in the chamber. His eyes studied everything that he could. “Forties aren’t so bad,” he decided. “Highest percentages that I’ve heard so far. Is that how much he’ll remember with the serum or if it will work or not?”

“Whether or not it will work,” Dr. Koya admitted.

T’Challa met with Steve’s eyes and T’Challa didn’t know why he bothered mentally asking Steve if he would be okay if they proceeded. Of course, Steve would be okay with it.

Soon, a team of scientists were preparing the serum for extraction. They were rushing and working harder than T’Challa had ever seen them because maybe with these higher chances, they would have a break afterward. T’Challa helped prepare along with his people and he pulled Steve aside to the back of the lab where the prince would stand.

“Proceeding with test number nine,” announced a scientist. T’Challa pulled a small lever on the side of the chamber to engage the solution inside. They watched the liquid transfer from a holding tube into smaller tubes that led inside to both sides of Bucky’s neck. Once the solution was removed from the holding tube and flowed through Bucky’s cold body, T’Challa signaled to heat him up. A doctor obliged and warmed up the chamber to thaw out Bucky. The patches of ice that coated his skin gradually began to melt. A fan above Bucky’s head blew hot air, making the glass that encased him to fog up.

Dr. Koya kept her eyes trained on the monitor before her that had the reads on his vitals. “Everything is normal,” she updated everyone.

The chamber’s door gave way to Bucky and the fog escaped its container to meet with the cooler air. Once the fog had cleared and the fan had shut off, his eyes blinked open and he drew in a deep intake of air. Bucky’s eyes were trying to adjust to the scene of doctors and scientists in front of him along with the king of Wakanda and his old time best friend. A doctor walked up to him to unlock him from the safety of the chamber. Bucky leaned upon the doctor for support when he first stepped out but after a few steps, Bucky regained his balance.

Steve was by his side not a second later. He gripped onto Bucky’s shoulders with his head tilted to the side to ask him  _Did it work?_

Bucky dropped his gaze from the hopeful gleam of Steve’s blues and drifted his head to the side. “No,” he muttered. “Nothing. I feel nothing.”

T’Challa balled up his fists and slammed them on the table next to Dr. Koya. She and the other doctors jumped at the sudden outburst of their king but they didn’t dare mention it. Steve and Bucky watched as the king squeeze his dark eyes shut with a scowl on his lips. Finally, he said to no one, “How many more failures must we need before we achieve success?”

“It wasn’t your fault, your Highness.” Steve turned toward T’Challa feeling the intense atmosphere that the king had made. “As many failures as it takes. We will figure this out-”

T’Challa declared, “It has been five months and no improvement! Perhaps whatever that Hydra had done to you, Bucky, is permanent.”

Bucky was weighed down with the weight of the stares of everyone in the room. He bit on the bottom of his lip and let his shoulders drop from beneath Steve’s supportive hand. He let Steve press on to T’Challa, saying how there has to be a solution of some sort that they haven’t tried yet while T’Challa argued that by the time they find some slight change with Bucky, the government could somehow find them in Wakanda.

While they verbally disputed over Bucky, Dr. Koya directed him to a chair to run a few more tests. She gave Bucky a tight-lipped smile as if to apologize for them but she never said a word while she took care of him.

“What the hell is with the fighting?” Sam called out, walking into the lab with Wanda, Scott, and Clint trailing after him. They all wore loose clothing and sweats and the guys were sweating through the cotton while Wanda was perfectly clean and didn’t smell. They had been training together in the hot, sticky forest of Wakanda. They caught sight of Bucky sitting on a chair and he lifted a weak hand to wave. Wanda returned the greeting with a smile, Scott tilted his head up to say Sup?, while Clint’s eyebrows raised. Sam, however, didn’t give him a second glance. “Steve, you know you can’t win a fight with a king,” he said.

“I can try.” Steve’s jaw clenched and he gave T’Challa a determined look while T’Challa subtly rolled his eyes.

Clint walked up to Bucky and patted his back. “You good?”

“No… it didn’t work again,” Bucky sighed.

“Okay,” Clint didn’t seem to accept that as an answer. “But are you  _good_?”

Bucky frowned at him and he couldn’t help but to have his shoulders answer for him. He didn’t know how he even felt about the situation. Disappointment? Gratitude? What if him not knowing his past be better for him? That question always floated his mind when he had his doubts. But what if he missed something critical?

He guessed that he wouldn’t find out for a long, long time if he ever found out at all.

Scott approached Steve and T’Challa and looked up at the taller men. He suggested, “You know, I can ask Hank if he could help-”

Quick to shoot him down, T’Challa warned, “It is too risky to have anyone outside of my country to know about any of you. We are on our own.”

“For how long?” Wanda spoke from behind Sam and Clint. They parted their way for her to make herself heard by everyone. She hesitated, seeing that their eyes were on her but she cleared her throat. “We’ve been in your hospitality for five months now, how long until we get to go home? We haven’t spoken to the rest of the Avengers in so long and Steve and Tony resolved the dispute about the Sokovia Records. Aren’t we safe at the Avengers base?”

“Wanda…” Steve’s voice grew softer for her and she met his sympathetic eyes. “Even if we somehow all make it to the base, the United Nations will still be after us. They could bomb the base if they wanted to and I’m not even sure if Tony forgave me.”

Silence lingered in the room as the heroes tried to decide on what should they possibly do next so that none of them could end up in prison or worse, dead.

Sam scoffed, “So that’s it then? We stay here and avoid the world. What happens when it needs saving? Would the United Nations still come after us?”

“I don’t know,” mumbled Clint. He placed his hands on his hips and hung his head while he was lost in thought. “But they sure as hell can’t stop us from saving the world.”

Bucky accidentally tuned out their words and found himself lost in a daze. He found himself repeating _Five months_  over and over in his mind. No, he didn’t forget about her, if you were wondering. He never forgot about Val during the fight or while he was encased in ice. He wondered if they were to ever meet again, would Val would slap him across the face to make his cheek red and yell at him until she lost her voice? He had left her for five months without a word. He wasn’t even sure if she managed to survive that long.

_What if she died because of him?_

Bucky suddenly leaped up to his feet in the middle of their heated conversation. Their words came to a halting stop and they waited for Bucky to say something, a resolution to their problems. Instead of speaking, however, he stalked out of the lab.

Steve made an attempt to follow after him, but T’Challa grabbed his arm and pulled him back. Steve gave him an incredulous look, but T’Challa solemnly shook his head at Steve. Now wasn’t the best time for fighting anymore.

It wasn’t the first time that Bucky thawed out. There were failed tests and none of them held any progress whatsoever. He remembered which way in the palace would lead to his room, yet he couldn’t remember the face of his parents. Bucky knew in his heart that T’Challa spoke of the truth- that Hydra’s torture would hold until the day he died.  _Stop being optimistic_ , he thought to himself,  _be realistic._

He only stepped foot in his room once. It was a grand, luxurious room that was bare with nonexistent decorations. The entire wall in front of him was simply a window that overlooked the thick forest of Wakanda and the hazy fog that loomed above it. Bucky went to the closet and pulled the door open. His jacket hung on a hanger, the one that he wore in Romania. He reached his hand into its pocket and fished out the necklace that he had bought five months ago. The beaded necklace still gleamed as if it was brand new. Bucky ran his thumb over the Romanian coin, feeling the imprint of the ribbon and the country’s name on his skin.

He pictured putting on the necklace on Val and how his fingers would brush against the burns on the back of her neck and upper back. He wondered if they had healed properly and if they were still marked on her skin. Bucky wouldn’t get the chance to find out… or would he?

He snatched the jacket from the hanger and hastily pulled it on him. Instead of stuffing the necklace back in the pocket of the jacket and sealing its beauty away, he decided that he should wear it. He secured the necklace around his neck and hit it underneath his white tank and zipped up his jacket. The jacket’s sleeve dangled by his side where his left arm would have been if Tony hadn’t blown it off.

Bucky pulled the door open and he wasn’t surprised to see Steve standing in front of him. Steve glanced down at the jacket that he wore and he instantly shook his head. “No.”

“You can’t stop me,” Bucky said and brushed past Steve.

Steve groaned and he jogged to catch up with Bucky. “Where will you go?  _Why_  are you leaving? T’Challa can still find-”

“Stop trying to save me!” Bucky yelled, not caring if anyone heard him. His eyebrows pulled together and he let out a soft laugh. “I don’t deserve being saved, but I am going to do something that could save me.”

Steve slapped his sides with defeat with his shoulder sagging. He released a heavy breath and stared at his best friend. “Well… you’re not going without me.”

Bucky knew that he would say that.

~.

Bob found Val sound asleep in her bed, still as a statue. There was no certain clearance to be in order to reach her room, so Bob was grateful that he didn’t have to do anything over the top that would definitely get him in even more trouble than what he is going to be in. He approached her sleeping figure as she laid on her side, facing the wall. The device on Bob’s fingertips was just the width of his thumb and shaped like the north star and how it is depicted in cartoons. He pressed the device against the back of her neck, just below her hair and felt a pang of sparks transfer inside him.

Bob leaped away from Val and almost crashed into the wall from his two left feet. He stood still once he regained his balance and cautiously glanced up to see Val’s steady breathing as if nothing had happened. Bob scrambled for the exit and shut the door behind him before he leaned against it and felt instant regret. He was definitely going to lose his job.


	8. The Flare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this is so late! I was on vacation and I couldn't get my hands on a computer. This chapter and the next one are posted together as an apology.

Bucky and Steve cornered Dr. Koya in her office. She was worked late on a new solution that Steve fought so hard to get earlier. She was on her computer, typing away when they had entered. She lifted a brow at them. “Why are you here so late?” she asked.

“We need your help.” Steve walked to her side and touched the back of her chair. “And we need you to keep quiet about it.”

Dr. Koya blinked at them. “Keep quiet?”

“Like don’t tell the king quiet,” Bucky explained. He would cross his arms right about now if he had his other arm. Instead, he gave her a menacing wolf stare.

Dr. Koya narrowed her eyes skeptically. “What do you want me to do?”

“Run a facial scan for a woman named Vivian Dang, last seen in Bucharest.” Dr. Koya stared at Bucky for a few seconds before she did what he asked her to do. Steve caught Bucky’s eye and he lifted a skeptical eyebrow at Bucky. He really didn’t want to talk about how he knew Val to Steve at the moment, so he kept his mouth shut.

A few minutes went by and Dr. Koya sighed, “Do you realize how many Vivian Dang’s there are in the entire world?” Not a moment too soon, she pointed at her screen. “I just got a sighting of her in Bucharest still. This was taken… four hours ago.” They leaned in close to see Val brushing her hair dark to the side of her face. She wore a long coat, a black long sleeved shirt and thick leggings on her legs. Val was talking to a stranger on the road in the photo.

This was it. Val was still in Bucharest, Romania. She had remained low while he was gone and she was safe. She must have stayed at his old apartment that he had left trashed when Steve showed up and the German Special Forces. The apartment was completely ruined, but there was nowhere else she could have gone.

They thanked Dr. Koya for her help and left her office. Walking beside each other, they headed straight towards the hangar located on the other side of the palace. The Central Wakandan Palace would be the biggest place that Bucky and Steve had ever toured, and it was more grand and eloquent than anything that Tony Stark would own.

Once in the hangar, they were met by the king who stood with his arms crossed against his chest and his head lifted high at them. He wore all black, but he wasn’t in his suit so he looked just like any other kind of guy with the exception of a tight necklace around his throat with a tooth as its pendant. Steve looked cross, “How did you-”

“You expect the people of my country to lie to their king?” T’Challa scoffed. He shook his head at them with shame. “I can not let you leave when they world is after you.”

“Your solution isn’t going to work.” Bucky dared to take a step forward without a second thought. “I’m getting something that might. We’ll come back. We know how to avoid being seen. It won’t take long.”

“And what is this solution of yours, Barnes?”

Bucky wanted anything other than to tell them to their faces. He wouldn’t know how to explain Val’s presence or if it would even make sense. Looking out from a different perspective, they could have thought anything of the situation. They could have thought that she was a mission, or that he took her and wanted her back. What if Steve looked at him differently? Bucky didn’t want to explain any of it because he knew that he wouldn’t make it sound right. Val could simply show them their story and tell them herself because she was better with words than him. She was simply better than him.

He started to doubt if he should return to Romania.

Her life could have been easier without him. She could be happy in the foreign country with herself or maybe someone knew that she had met. Val could be living a life without Bucky and she wouldn’t want him back. Or she could be incredibly miserable without him. She could cry every night and curse his name every morning since he had left.

He didn’t know that. He had to be sure of Val’s feelings towards the matter. He had to get to her.

Bucky walked past the king, whom surprisingly let him through. T’Challa turned towards the back of Bucky and Steve cautiously followed his best friend to a jet. Although high-tech, Bucky knew that he could fly it himself like he had done so many times before.

Behind them, T’Challa called out, “I better not see your faces on every television screen in the world. The rest of the Avengers… they need you.”

Bucky realized that T’Challa was doing them a favor. T’Challa trusted them to find this cure, even though the king guessed it was something that he didn’t want to know about because of Bucky’s evasiveness, and T’Challa trusted them to return home to Wakanda without the United Nations sniffing at their tracks. 

~.

Madame Hydra tapped the piece in her ear a few times to check if it was working for the fourth time now. Bob watched her fiddle with her equipment with a slightly amused smile but he quickly wiped it away when she turned to look at him. “She’s ready,” Madame said.

Bob gave her a nod and he tapped his fingers across a keyboard. A second later, video surveillance appeared on the large screen in front of them. They could see a crowd of people walking about in the street. They spotted Val sitting on the edge of a fountain with a newspaper in her hands. She scribbled down answers to a crossword that was completely written in Romania. She was taught the language along with Russian, and German during their five months together.

In her ear, she heard Madame’s voice call out to her. “Barnes has been spotted two blocks away from you. Get ready for the show.”

That was surprisingly fast, at least to Val. She purposely got caught on a video camera so her face would be recognized by a facial scanner. It only took a day for the Winter Soldier to show up. At least it wasn’t SHIELD tearing through the city again to find her. They had been quiet since when she was first taken in by Hydra.

Val brushed off her lap and folded the newspaper neatly before she placed it in the water of the fountain. The ink smudged together from the liquid and it stayed floating at the top. She cuffed up the sleeves of her long, tan duster coat.

She pulled a mischievous grin on her face and shouted in Romanian for everyone to hear. “Who wants to see magic?” People turned their heads to glance at the young Chinese woman wave her hands around. They gave each other perplexed looks before they heard the popping of fireworks.

In the palm of her hand, there was a purple light. The light rose and hovered above her hand before she tossed it high like a ball. The purple light condensed and exploded into globe-shaped sparks. People awed at the sight of the firework display and they eagerly gazed at Val for more. She was more than happy to oblige. In both of her hands, she tossed two bright lights of white into the air. They exploded into a palm tree when they burst with a tail that resembled a tree trunk. The fireworks would dissipate before they reached the ground.

“He’s here,” Madame spoke.

Val raised her hands above her head and drew in a breath. One final release and she sent a shot of gold into the air. It exploded into a willow firework, shaped like a dome and it the sprinkling gold surrounded her when she saw Bucky in front of her.

He walked with purpose. He strode straight towards her, eyes only focused on her like tunnel vision. He brushed people out of his way while they cheered for Val to continue with her little magic show. Behind him, a broad-shouldered blond man stared wide-eyed at Val, but he didn’t slow down his pace with Bucky. Bucky increased his speed and turned his speed walk into a jog. He stopped in front of Val just as the last of the gold flickered away into nothingness.

He stood there, not knowing how to respond next. Val did. She leaped on him and wrapped her arms around his neck in a tight embrace. He hesitated before he squeezed her back with his one arm (his normal one), shocked that she didn’t yell at him like he thought she would. He turned his head toward hers and whispered in her ear, “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t believe you.”

All it took was a blink. One blink and he felt his skin being pierced and his insides. She clenched her jaw as she drove the black knife into his stomach. Bucky staggered away from Val and she peered at Bucky with her deep brown eyes glazed over with… nothing. She was completely mono-faced as she watched him grab his knife and pull it out from him.

Shouts came from the people and they scattered from the scene. Steve surged toward them but Bucky had sensed this. He threw his arm back and held his hand open. “Don’t Steve!” He croaked, “Don’t save me.” Steve’s feet weighed like bricks and he forced himself to not move. Steve ached to do something for his best friend, but there was nothing that Bucky wanted him to do.

Val watched Steve before she returned her gaze to Bucky. “You think you can still fight?”

“I’ve had worse.” Bucky tossed the bloodstained knife aside and it clattered against the ground. He lifted his head high and took deep breaths through his mouth. “And I always have to fight.”

Val lifted up her hands like the many times she had done before when they had trained together. She nodded at him. “Then I’m ready.”

Bucky sauntered towards her with his fist clenched and his mind on fire with fury. This was far worse than what Bucky was expecting. He thought that if Val was dead, it would be horrible, but this… this was a god damned tragedy. They had twisted her- Hydra for sure- to a weapon like him.

He threw the first punch towards her face but she gripped his wrist and lifted his arm upward then sailed a kick to his side. Bucky grunted at the impact but he jabbed his elbow at her neck and she yelped out in pain. She let go of his wrist and Bucky didn’t waste another second to thrust his foot at her core. She staggered to the edge of the fountain while Bucky pursued.

Val pressed her hands against the edge and lifted her leg up in a straight kick to the jaw. His head snapped back and Val pushed herself from the fountain to push-kick him where he had been stabbed. Bucky took the force and countered with a kick of his own, but she grabbed his leg in her hand and jabbed her elbow on his thigh. He was off balance, so he let go of his leg, causing him to start to fall but she sent a series of elbow jabs at his torso before she punched his chin again. She knocked him in his throat with another blow with her elbow and forced him to fall to the ground.

Bucky was helpless and Val stood over him, knowing it. Her fighting style had slightly changed to what Bucky had shown her: direct and rough. Working with Hydra (although not knowing the truth), the agents showed her to be quick and use what she had. Her legs were stronger than her arms- she used to go running every day when she was younger and leg days were one of the most important days in the week (Val’s words to Bucky). Her punches weren’t that impressive, but she used to elbow her older brother any time he said something stupid (which was often), and these elbow jabs came naturally to her.

With a smirk, she straddled him and began to pummel his face with punches. Blood poured from his nose and cuts covered his face, his bruises already swelling.

Steve couldn’t take it anymore. He stepped forward but halted when Bucky thrust his right arm and grabbed Val’s throat. She gasped from his clenching fingers and suddenly, he twisted them over so now that he was on top of Val. Her mouth was open, trying to attain air and she clawed at his hand. She managed to reroute her hands to hold Bucky’s face where she zapped his skin. Bucky yelled at the tiny explosions on his flesh but he kept his grip on Val’s neck. His eyes burned and his mind went numb. He barely noticed that Val’s eyes rolled to the back of her head and her thrashing was receding.

Then… she just stopped.

Bucky opened his hand from her throat with dark bruises where his fingers had been. He heaved in breaths and released them hard and glanced up at Steve. Steve, wide-eyed, did nothing. Bucky felt his heart drop and he gently pressed two fingers against her vein on her neck. Her heart still beat.

Bucky didn’t kill her, but he had come close.

He spotted something in her ear and pulled out a black device that was a comms. He clenched it in his fist and chucked it into the water fountain where it fell to the bottom.

~.

Madame Hydra snapped her fingers at Bob. “Activate the tracker on her now.”

Bob’s head cocked to the side and he lifted a brow at her. “Uh…” he said with a rasp in his voice, “we set no device on her for tracking.”

Madame Hydra’s face burned face like the molten red of the first leader of Hydra, the Red Skull. Bob could even spot the veins protruding out from her neck and her eye twitched. “No… device?” She managed to say with two breaths.

“No device. You never asked for one.” Now, Bob wasn’t used to lying and he sure as hell wasn’t good at it, yet Madame Hydra’s eyes darted to the sides as if she was trying to recall if she did. Bob chewed on his lip, hoping that this would work because it had to. The device that Bob had put on Val was the tracker that Madam Hydra spoke about, but that was the whole ruse. Unknown to her, Bob would be closely monitoring it on his phone. The tracker also doubled as a communication device, so when the time was right, all he had to do was press a button and speak to Val without Madame Hydra ever knowing.

Madame Hydra wasn’t in her right mind when she was angry. Her only asset had been taken by the enemy and she had no means of tracking them down. Her plan was set back tremendously and she practically gave the enemy everything. She pulled her gun from its holster on her leg and shot the television screen in front of them. Bob cowered and he hid behind his computer as the glass shattered. Madame Hydra howled with fury.

~.

Steve asked, “Is she…?”

“Alive.” Bucky didn’t have to ask Steve for help. Steve bent down and lifted the limp woman in his arms. Bucky could see the bruises that he had left her on her chest. Her eyes were sewn shut and her head pressed against Steve.

Bucky winced and his hand went for his stab wound. He clutched his stomach and saw the blood that caked his hand. He pressed harder on the wound to stop the bleeding by applying pressure. Bucky didn’t plan on bleeding out like this, so he said to Steve, “Let’s go... home.”

“We can’t. The fireworks display drew too much attention. We can’t head straight back to the others or we’ll be followed there and have them jeopardized.” Steve began a brisk pace back to their getaway car. Bucky followed after him as fast as he could. “We have to go to the base.”

 

Bucky managed a weak laugh. “T’Challa won’t like that.”


	9. Broken Home

Tony’s phone vibrated in his sleeve. Bewildered, he pulled it out and flipped it open to find an unknown caller ID. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew exactly who called, the same person that gave him the old phone in the first place. That old timer, Steve, and his theatrics. Tony was shocked that Steve called him. Didn’t Steve say the opposite would happen instead?

Tony raised the phone to his ear as he kicked back in his chair with his feet propped up on his desk and he stared out the window. Cockily, he greeted Steve with “Missed me-?”

“I’m bringing Bucky in.”

Tony blinked and his mouth fell. He felt his blood boil from inside his veins and he clenched his fist at the very thought of the Winter Soldier. But it didn’t make any sense for Steve to bring him in the very place where he shouldn’t be. Something must have gone seriously weary for Steve to do such a thing. “What happened?” he asked.

“He was attacked, and we were made. We- I need your help, Tony. Can’t go anywhere else.”

There he goes again. Steve always thought that with a few simple words, he could win over Tony. And damn Tony for always falling for those words of his. Tony hated the very being of Captain America and how his father was ol’ buddies with the American legend. Tony knew that Howard would have rather had Steve by his side instead of his own flesh and blood- his own son. Tony would forever attempt to live up to the great Captain America.

Now, he stood as equals to Steve. Tony had to admit that Steve was aggravatingly good, that he was the very man that his father so frequently described. Steve was perfect. Tony was expected to be the same. He had to beat Steve at his own game of perfection. Tony didn’t remotely like his father, yet after all of these years, he was still competing for Howard’s love.

So shit. Yeah, Tony would be on differing sides to Steve if he had to be. Tony just so happened to greatly disagree with Steve on the Sokovia Accords. Neither one of them was willing to compromise and they were both too stubborn to even consider it. Tony thought that he was the bigger man in the civil war- hell, he knew he was the bigger man. Steve solely acted with selfishness for his murderous best friend. Steve was so selfish in fact, that he took half of the Avengers away with him into hiding as a safeguard for Bucky.

Everything was for Bucky fucking Barnes. Steve risked his life for Bucky, and what didn’t terrify Tony the most was not that Steve was willing to die to protect Bucky, but it was that Captain America, who stood for America’s ideals and morals, was willing to kill for Bucky- kill Tony for Bucky.

Yet Tony sat there with that five-month-old phone that Steve gave him after the battle, listening to Steve actually beg him for hospitality. He listened and he couldn’t help it. Tony loathed Steve more than ever now, but what came out of his mouth was, “Where are you?”

“Here.”

Tony kicked his feet off of the desk and rose from his seat. He approached the glass window where it overlooked a richly green forest in the distance with towering trees that could have risen to Asgard. Tony saw a plane landing on the launch pad, then he saw a blur of white in front of it.

Tony clasped the phone shut and he stuffed it in his pocket hastily with a curse on his lips. He ran out of his office and made his way toward the loading dock.

When he arrived, Pietro stood with his arms crossed on top of his puffed out chest. His unusually white, wavy hair shone brighter than usual in the sunlight and Pietro didn’t bother to glance over his shoulder when Tony arrived. Tony caught his breath and waltzed up to the taller young man. Pietro grumbled in his thick Sokovian accent, “Did you let this happen?”

“Happened before I could say anything,” admitted Tony.

Pietro took a quick look at Tony with the corners of his eyes and heaved in a deep breath. “The facility is secure, and you let him get past security like it was nothing. You had a say since the moment they left.”

Tony’s lips pulled into a thin line and he didn’t want to muster a comeback at Pietro. His silence didn’t last long when the door of the airplane was opened by Steve. Steve didn’t waste time staring at his ex-colleagues and disappeared back inside the airplane. Tony strolled forward. “Give me one goddamn reason why I shouldn’t turn you in, Rogers.”

“Because you wouldn’t!” taunted Steve from the inside of the plane. He was still out of sight when he responded to Tony.

A figure gripped the doorway of the plane and Bucky forced himself to step out. Sweat beaded his face and his eyes were too heavy to lift. He took one step from the plane and began to fall. An instant later, Pietro had caught him from falling flat on his face. Pietro took Bucky’s one arm and wrapped it around his shoulder, relieving the weight on Bucky but Bucky hissed in pain because of his wounded side.

Tony was surprised by the fact that Pietro had helped Bucky. Ever since they had left, Pietro loathed the Winter Soldier about the same, if not more, than Tony. With Bucky and Steve, Wanda went into hiding and Pietro still hadn’t recovered from their civil dispute.

Steve reappeared again but with an unconscious woman in his arms. She had a large bruise on her temple, but other than that Tony could see, she seemed okay. Steve nodded at Pietro in gratitude but Pietro merely rolled his eyes at the Captain. Steve approached Tony and said, “This is my reason.”

Tony puckered out his lips to imitate mock-thinking. “And why should I care about that reason?”

“She... has powers.”

Damn everything.

~.

Still asleep, Val lay on a clear table. Beside her, on a matching bed, Bucky mirrored her. His face was still beaded with sweat and his skin burned hot like the sun, yet he felt too chill to be sweating so much. Groggily, he blinked his eyes open and caught sight of Dr. Helen Cho standing over him. She tapped a few times on a pad on top of a machine that was curved like a dome and rested on either side of Bucky called the Cradle. Rays of blue strands emitted from the Cradle to the stab wound on Bucky’s side and it was healing before his eyes.

Helen explained the process before he could ask. “What the Cradle is doing is creating tissue to accelerate the healing process.”

“Where’s…?” He craned his head to the side and saw that Val was still unconscious. Instead of worrying about anything else, he asked, “What about her?”

Helen brushed the black strands of hair behind her ears and she turned her head to look at Val. She swallowed. “Miss Dang has some minor surface injuries, bruises and such. However, due to the strangling that she went through, her arteries were compressed, meaning that there is reduced blood flow to the brain and low blood pressure. She has a hypersensitive carotid sinus that was damaged during the attack which caused her to have irregular heartbeats or arrhythmia.”

“Will she die?”

“Oh no.” Helen shook her head and released a relaxed sigh. “She will live. Miss Dang should be monitored for a period of time for her blood pressure and her heart rate.”

Bucky turned his head away from Val and he stared above at the white ceiling. “You can’t use this thing for her?”

“It creates tissues… I can’t have it fix the way her heart beats. I wish…” She trailed off, “I would have already used it on her if it would work like that.” Helen cleared her throat. “Anyways, you, Mr. Barnes, have an infection in your wound. That’s why you’re experiencing a fever. It should pass soon after the Cradle is finished. Get some rest and I’ll check up on you with antibiotics if you need them.” Helen offered another small, kind smile and she was gone.

Bucky didn’t get rest. His head ached from a migraine but he remained alerted. Once the Cradle’s lights bummed out, he pulled himself from beneath the device. Bucky's hand touched his side where his black knife was driven into him, but the wound was completely gone. Nothing was there.

Slightly freaked out by the machine, he scrambled to get off of the bed. Bucky trudged to Val’s bedside and he blinked once he saw readings of her vitals on the actual table. He saw her heart rate beat faster than normal and the numbers written in red showed her low blood pressure.

She wasn’t dying, that’s what Helen said, but Bucky couldn’t help but see her there as a corpse. She might have been a lifeless body if Bucky hadn’t stopped his fatal hold around her neck. The bruises of his fingers were still present on her cream-colored skin. She wore her hair differently from last time. The burnt edges were cut and the ombre was still the same lighter brown. Most of her short hair swooped to the right of her face and her cheeks were still flushed slightly red.

Bucky couldn’t bring himself to touch her. Not again. He turned to return back to his bed when his wrist was grabbed. Microscopic explosions rattled in his wrist and he grunted out in pain. Val glowered at him with her eyebrows furrowed and a snarl on her lips. “I wonder if I can blow off your other arm,” she spat with her voice strangled and raspy.

Bucky wouldn’t fight her this time. He wouldn’t ever try again. Bucky let himself go as Val's grip on him became tighter and tighter as the fireworks grew larger and larger until the sound of a hiss of a door came. Tony sprinted in. He wore the gloves of his Iron Man suit on his hands and pried away Val’s grip on Bucky. Tony forcibly pushed the Winter Soldier backward to his bed, and when Val tried to get up for more, Tony slammed her back down. She throttled against him and yelled against Tony. Helen came running in not a moment too soon with a syringe in her hands. Val opened up her hand and held it directly in Tony’s face to release a firework, but Helen stuck the syringe into Val’s neck. Val blinked hard a few times before she collapsed again.

Tony spun around on his heels and grabbed Bucky’s jaw, lifting him in the air. Helen surged toward them but Tony snapped at her to back the hell up with his hand pointed at her. She stood frozen with her empty syringe in her hands. Tony growled at him, “You come to my home and endanger everyone here just by your very existence.” Tony jabbed his finger at Val. “You’re going to tell me what the hell you did to that girl and I’m going to ship your ass to the United Nations.”

“Tony, you have to calm-” Helen cried.

Bucky struggled to speak because of Tony’s grip but he doubted that Tony cared how he was going to explain. “I don’t… know,” he managed.

Tony slammed Bucky into the floor and he grunted from the impact. Still holding onto him, Tony lifted his left hand above Bucky’s face. The glove charged up and the circle at its center glowed. “Give me an answer that doesn’t make me want to punch you in the face.”

Bucky coughed out, “H-Hydra. It was… Hydra.”

Suddenly, Tony ripped away from Bucky and was tossed to the opposite wall. He pushed himself from the ground to see Steve standing in front of Bucky, defending him. Bucky pressed his head against the wall and breathed in deep breaths.

Tony leapt up to his feet and his eyes sparked with anger. “He’s a criminal!” yelled Tony.

“So am I,” Steve said, his voice eerily quiet.

Tony’s face burned and he couldn’t control the way his face contorted or how his inner thoughts poured from his soul. “No, you aren’t. You’re Captain-freaking-America. The only reason why you’re a fucking criminal is because you weren’t acting like the Cap. You throw everything away like it didn’t even matter for this walking lefty! He’s the damn criminal Steve, not you. He needs to answer for his crimes.”

Steve rebuffed, “Crimes that he didn’t commit!”

A derisive laugh had risen from the back of Tony’s throat. “That’ll sell, sure. They don’t give a shit. It doesn’t change the fact that he did them! He needs help.”

“Help?” Steve scoffed. “Help or control? You think putting him in that damn prison is going to help him? After what he’s been through?”

“It’s a place to start because how else is he going to stop being a rampaging psychopath rather than confinement? People like him need to be controlled.” Tony tread toward Val on her bed and he stared down at her body with a flash of regret on his face. He didn’t know what he was regretting since it wasn’t his fault, but he couldn’t help but feel sympathetic for her. He didn’t look up from Val’s unconscious body. “They already got to her. You said she attacked him. How long do you think it will be when we see an actual corpse on the floor with Bucky standing over it? How long? That is he does! They could destroy everything that we have- everything that the Avengers are. And you let it happen, Steve.” Tony’s bloodshot eyes bored into Steve’s as he growled, “You’ll be known as the man who killed the Avengers.”

Steve slumped his shoulders and he maintained the stoic expression on his face. He dismissed what Tony had said and countered with “Then why did you let us in?”

Tony sighed. Steve just wouldn’t get a damn clue. He couldn’t possibly get it because he couldn’t empathize what Tony felt. Steve couldn’t put himself in the persona of the young, emotionally abused Anthony Stark. Steve couldn’t put himself in the persona of the older (and not yet wiser) traumatized Avenger. Tony Stark was a harbinger of death since the moment he designed weapons for the United States military, to the alien invasion in New York, to the fall of Sokovia and the damn civil war of the Sokovia Accords.

With a final hurrah, Tony stormed out of the room, still unsure of how he felt about anything anymore. Tony called over his shoulder, “Because it was you.”  
The room fell silent between Steve, Bucky, and Helen. After a short while, Helen went to Bucky’s side and quietly asked if he was alright and if he needed to get checked up again. Bucky waved her off politely, saying that it was nothing that he hadn’t faced before.

His back still facing him, Steve spoke with his arms crossed. “Who is she, Bucky?”

Bucky peered at her sleeping body. Steve already knew her identity, but he didn't know their history together. “Someone I trust.”

“She tried to kill you!” Steve couldn’t control the anger in his voice, and it made him look threatening. Steve turned to the side. He had distress laced with his words. “Is she really worth dying for?”

Bucky made his eyes narrow and gave Steve a smouldering look with his jaw tightened after he said those words. Steve, poor Steve who couldn’t possibly understand, stood tall and defiant even though he wanted to take what he said back. Bucky lowered his eyes from Steve, gave one last look toward Val on her bed and softly asked, “Am I?”

Steve sighed, “That’s not what I meant. You’re different-”

“No, I am not!” Bucky scoffed with a shake of his head, “I’m doing the same thing for her like you did for me. I am protecting someone I care about from everyone and herself.”

Helen felt like she wasn’t supposed to be in there to witness their little dispute. She hung her head and stared below at the floor while she pushed back her strands of her hair behind her ear. Steve marched out of the lab after Bucky had his say. Helen wanted to speak with Bucky and say that he really shouldn’t be up and about so early and to rest for possibly an hour or two but she doubted that he would listen. Instead, she would do what Tony asked her to do after he, Pietro and Steve dropped off Bucky and Val.

“Come with me,” she said, turning toward the door.

Bucky hesitated, but he found himself trailing behind Helen. When the two of them walked by, the personnel gave Bucky incredulous glances or even they outright glared at him. He paid the personnel no mind, but he did try to keep the layout of the Avengers Facility glued into his brain. A force of habit when he goes anywhere, yes, but it was handy if he ever needed to make a hasty escape… which happens quite often.

Helen led him deep into the facility into a security locked door. She typed in a code for them to enter and she walked in first. After Bucky had stepped through, he stood in the center of the room while Helen remained close to the door and cleared her throat and said, “Activate magnet.”

An intense humming came from the opposite wall and riveted the air like pulses. Bucky thrust his hand out toward Helen to grab onto the nearest thing- her- his first instinct. Suddenly, he was ripped off of his balance. The powerful magnet dragged his left side of his upper body toward the wall. Bucky slid backward on his heels, trying to lock his position, but it was futile.

Bucky collided into the wall, his left shoulder had some metal plating that still there, and he was practically cemented to the wall. He was unable to pry himself away. Bucky’s eyes burned at Helen and she looked more than just ashamed of herself. She held the door frame and stood halfway in the room while Bucky bared his teeth at her. He knew the answer as to why she would do this: she worked for Tony Stark after all and he was in enemy territory at the moment, but he couldn’t help but to wonder: why her?

Helen spoke softly, “You have people that you trust, and I have mine. Tony’s right about one thing that concerns you, Barnes: you’re dangerous.”


	10. Games

Bob fiddled with his fingers on his lap while Madame Hydra finished her childish tantrum. She had been going about this for nearly an hour and she ordered Bob to remain motionless, so he had no choice but to be a witness. Madame patted down her hair and she grabbed the thick bangs that covered half of her face and showed her burn scars to Bob. He shuddered but if he dared looked away, Madame would have his throat. “Setbacks,” she sounded deranged with her voice higher than normal and her eye twitching, “makes the endgame so much harder to achieve. Setbacks make the perfect situation imperfect and paint a realistic painting. My face was a set back to my promotion. The capture of Project Nova is a setback to our canvas.”

“Are you suggesting...?”

“Yes, I am.” Madame Hydra released her hold on her hair and curled her lip into a mischievous smile. She’s gone crazy, Bob thought to himself, it’s perfect. The more she lost her head because of his little scheme, the more she will lose her hold on Hydra. He watched her take a deep breath and calm herself. “We continue with Project Nova and recover Flare at a later time.”

“How are we supposed to continue Project Nova without… Project Nova?”

“God, you are such a fool.” Madame Hydra scowled at him and shook her head. “You’re getting Project Nova and the Flare confused. Nova is compliance. The Flare is only a part of Project Nova. There will be more assets like the Flare. Now that we know that Project Nova was a success, it is up to us to continue Hive’s work of finding capable Inhumans and rebuild the entity of Hydra with the Flare as its fist.”

“But how are we supposed to retrieve the Flare if she was taken by Barnes and Rogers?” Bob was too inquisitive, and he realized this when Madame Hydra narrowed her eyes at him accusingly.

Despite that, she answered him simply. “We won’t do anything, the Nova will.”

~.

Val woke to nothing. She blinked, focusing on the ceiling before she pushed herself into an upright position. A blanket lied on her lower half of her body and she curled her fingers around the edge of the cotton. Val had no dreams, like usual ever since she had the gift of the Nova. It destroys nightmares, Madame Hydra promised, so you fear nothing but life. Madame Hydra was always so overly melodramatic, but her promise was proven true. Val went to bed without fear- fear of what? She didn’t know, but she did know that she would never feel afraid anymore. Val woke in the morning with a clear mind.

There were no nightmares, but her mind wasn’t clear.

The thought of Bucky’s fingers around her throat and the scowl on his face as he did it made her feel unsettled. There was death in his eyes as he strangled her, and she saw the monster that she was taught to be wary of. Val lifted her fingers to touch the bruised skin where Bucky’s left ghosts.

Val raised her head to the sound of a door opening. Helen walked in with a warm greeting smile on her face. She wore a lab coat and blue underclothes beneath the coat. She cautiously drew near Val and asked, “You’re not going to attack me, are you?”

Val opened her mouth to tease her and say, Why would I harm a doctor and a good person at that? but strangled noises came out instead of coherent English. She touched her throat and Helen was by her side in an instant. Helen commanded her to open her mouth while she dug through the front pocket of her lab coat for a small flashlight. Helen pried Val’s mouth open and shined the light through. “Try again,” she said.

“Wh...where…” Val cleared her scratchy throat, her eyebrows knitted, “is...B-Bu-”

“Detained,” Helen reassured her. “Tony is making sure that he is properly dealt with. We can’t have you killing him before we’ve decided what to do with Barnes.”

Val narrowed her eyes at Helen. She dared to ask, “Wh-What if... I decided?”

~.

It had been a day since Steve had unexpectedly arrived at the Avengers Facility and Tony still couldn’t make a decision as to what he should do with Bucky and the psychotic woman they had brought with them. He pondered the possibilities of giving Bucky over to the United Nations like the Sokovia Accords would demand, but he kept contradicting himself because of his inner monologue the previous day about Steve and his own father. Turning Bucky in would be the right thing to do, but Tony wasn’t sure if that was completely true. He had hoped that he could sleep on it and make a decision in the morning, but he was just as perplexed as yesterday.

Tony strolled into the kitchen in the common room that the Avengers shared with a yawn on his lips and some muscles that needed some stretching. Rhodey glanced up from his food, waffles, and gave Tony a critical look. “Don’t you look like shit,” commented Rhodey.

“Ownin’ it.” Tony raked his hand through his unmade hair. Half of him couldn’t believe that he left his bedroom looking like this, and the other half didn’t care.

He cocked his head to the side, looking at Rhodey’s waffles. Rhodey noticed this and sighed, “Well are you gonna ask or…?”

“Yes.”

“Fine, I’ll make you some.” Rhodey pushed off of the countertop with his hands and waddled around like a penguin. Ever since his legs and spine were damaged in the civil war, Tony had made him supports. These months and this waddling, teeter-totting to the side, would be the best he could walk. It pained Tony to see his best friend like this every time, and he thought of the reason why it happened. He suddenly leaned on giving up Bucky to the United Nations more than ever.

Rhodey placed the plate of waffles in front of Tony and pushed the bottle of syrup beside it. Tony realized that he hadn’t eaten waffles since he was twelve years old when (Great) Grandma Peggy watched over him with Jarvis when his parents were off in Belgium or anywhere else in the world for… Tony couldn’t remember what, but he wasn’t happy about it. Peggy had kissed his cheek, told him that waffles made her feel better and to trust her, so he did.

He half expected Rhodey to kiss his cheek. He stared at Rhodey with wide eyes. “What?” asked Rhodey accusingly. “If you aren’t going to eat them, I will literally kill your ass.”

“It was nothing.” Tony picked up a fork and knife and began to cut up the waffles.

“So what’s going on with Bucky?” Rhodey asked after the first few bites. “Vision questioned me about it like I knew. Aren’t you going to turn him in?”

Tony then switched to the defensive. He scoffed and shook his head, “Can you-can you not ask me about this?

“Whoa, okay.” Rhodey held up his hands in surrender. With sarcasm in his voice, he asked, “Did I offend you?”

Rhodey clamped his mouth shut when Pietro waltzed into the kitchen, late as ever. It seemed to be a habit of his. Somehow, the fastest man alive would arrive late to key locations. The only time he ever arrived promptly was yesterday when Steve had arrived.

Pietro had been restless since his time parted from his twin sister after the war. He had died in Sokovia with six bullet wounds in his chest and in a futile attempt to save him, Wanda demanded that he would be put under the Cradle’s protection as well as Helen’s. Helen was very skeptical about the situation, but she attempted to save Pietro.

Although his body had lost its heat and his eyes were glossed over and lost, Helen fished out the bullets in his body and positioned the Cradle above him. Wanda was drained of her own blood, looking thinner and more ghost-like with her cold eyes, to give a blood transfusion to him. Helen warned Wanda if she gave too much blood that she would die, but Wanda refused to move. “He died for Sokovia,” she said, “I can die for my brother.” 

Helen heaved a heavy breath at the time, and she collected the twin’s blood to do the transfusion. Working with the Cradle and two other doctors, they mended his pale, cold body. Pietro was healed, but he didn’t wake up. Wanda sat by his side for two days straight, talking to him about their home and their new friends, and squeezing his hand so he would know that she was there. The other Avengers had already given up on Pietro, and a few of them like Clint, Vision and Natasha, had told her that he wouldn’t come back.

Hell-bent on saving her brother’s life, she searched into his head and triggered his senses. She literally hypnotized him to wake up, to do anything but to not lie there, dead. And he did wake up and owed her everything. When he came back to the world, he gave her a lazy smile and whispered, "You didn't see that coming?" Wanda let loose a sob and held onto her brother tight with laughter.

The other Avengers sure as hell didn’t see that coming, so kudos to you, Pietro.

Pietro seemed half-dead, like always. If dying wasn’t the worst part of his life, it was losing his twin sister because of a dispute. Tony had told him that the last sign of Wanda was when she was locked up in the Raft with a straightjacket on and she had gone mute. Then, she disappeared, and not once had she ever tried to contact Pietro. Was she furious at him? Did she hate him after the war? It didn’t matter what the answer was, Pietro just wanted to know that she was safe.

Pietro went straight to the refrigerator and grabbed his own small carton of milk. He chugged straight from the carton, narrowed eyes trained on Tony with a scowl even as he drank. Rhodey swallowed another bite of his waffles, and nearly gagged on them in the process. Tony, however, seemed unimpressed with Pietro’s childish antics. Finally, Pietro lowered the milk. “What’s the play, Stark?”

“Play?” Tony glanced down at Rhodey who sat at the kitchen’s table. “Have I ever played football before? Or even watch it at least?” Rhodey darted his eyes to the side to refrain himself from snorting.

Pietro scoffed, “Steve knows where my sister is and you haven’t told the United Nations yet.” He placed the carton of milk back in the refrigerator. It was hard to make some convincing statements and threats with a milk-stache on your face, but Pietro continued to speak. “You’re not going to do a single damn thing before we get my sister.”

“Who’s a criminal,” commented Rhodey. He listed named with his fingers. “As well as Clint, Sam and the guy who can change from an ant to a damn giant- not to mention that we are harboring two other fugitives- which reminds me.” He turned to face tony this time and jabbed his finger at him. “What is the play, Stark?”

Tony shut his eyes with a shake of his head. “Look, I’ve got it figured out. We get Steve to spill the beans about the others and we…” he couldn’t say give them over as simple as that. It felt incredibly wrong in the pit of his gut, so he avoided it. “We monitor Val and see what Hydra did to her. Reverse the effects and do the same for Bucky-”

“Now you’re on his side?” gasped Pietro. “Didn’t you try to kill him for murdering your parents a few months ago?”

“Wait, wait.” Rhodey knit his eyebrows together. “What about the others? Are we just going to ignore what to do with them? If we withhold information from the United Nations and a hundred and seventeen countries, they will deem us as criminals just like the other Avengers.”

This was all they did. Argue, argue and argue about the Sokovia Accords. What was allowed and what wasn’t. The Avengers walked a thin line between allies and criminals. Fortunately for Tony, his cell phone rang and he quickly whipped it out to avoid the subject again. He didn’t care if the number was blocked, anyone who was able to pull him out of this situation deserved Tony’s attention.

He waved his hand to excuse himself and walked away toward the meeting room where all of the Avengers had once sat down in to discuss with General Thaddeus Ross about the Sokovia Accords. The table at the room’s center was lengthy to fit everyone and the color was rich burgundy with a white trim. Sleek black swivel chairs surrounded the table. The meeting room was secluded with glass walls and the front wall had the insignia of the New Avengers logo in faded gray.

At night when Tony couldn’t sleep since his brain would go overdrive, and when he didn’t want to tinker, he found himself wandering here to the meeting room. He would pull up a chair in the corner of the meeting room and stare out the window on the right to the stars. Do something, he would think. Do something and not sit here. But he didn’t.

Natasha’s voice raided his mind before he could pull out his chair. “Have you heard about what happened in Bucharest? And Acropolis?”

“How come no one ever tries to have a decent conversation with me?” whined Tony instead of answering. “A simple ‘hello’ and ‘how’s your day going?’ would be fantastic actually.”

He could hear Natasha groan on the other line. Tony could imagine the woman rolling her sharp green eyes at him. “Hello,” she replied cooly. “How’s your day going?”

“Hi Nat.” He couldn’t help but smile at the sound of her voice. “My day’s terrible, but I hope yours is better.”

“Not after hearing about Romania…”

And we’re back to square one. Tony couldn’t believe that he could trust a two-timing assassin more than he could with his best friend or any other Avenger. At least with Natasha, she lied with the truth. He had known her the longest out of any of them (with the exception of Rhodey) and she had always come true to her word- whether it was good or the bad. Tony sighed, “Yeah… I’ve heard.”

“They’re the same phenomenon in two different countries, one of which Bucky and Steve were sighted,” she continued. “Are you ignoring this, Tony?”

“No, I-I’m not ignoring it. I was just about to call you.”

Natasha hesitated at his response. Tony turned in his chair, leaning over with his elbows pressed against his thighs and a tired hand pressed against his forehead. She asked, “What happened?”

“They came here…” He said unsteadily.

“Then I’m coming too.”

“You aren’t on the other side of the world, are you?”

She chuckled, “I’m a lot closer than you think, Tony. I’ll be there in a few hours.”

“I swear to god,” he joked, “if you’re in the basement right now…”

“You’d never know.”

He had no idea where her true loyalties or her intentions lied, but he was relieved to hear that. Natasha could ease off the pressure that was already on Tony’s shoulders and provide neutral feedback. Maybe that was why he trusted her so much. She was her own player in the game.


	11. Abnormal

Steve was frantic. This had been a terrible idea since the very beginning. He blamed himself for even listening to Bucky’s plea in Wakanda to return to Romania. Steve was desperate to help his best friend in any way possible, but not like this. Not with his best friend detained in a high-tech holding cell, surrounded by ex-friends and might be enemies.

He went to Vision, the only person who wouldn’t lie, to ask where Bucky had gone. The android tried his best to elude the question, but he broke and told Steve about the specially designed cell that Tony had worked on for Bucky after the civil war. Vision, however, would not reveal the location of the cell since he deemed that it was “not the highest of importance”. Infuriated, Steve stormed to find Tony with his cheeks red and fists clenched like he was ready to fight.

“The hell, Tony?!” Steve shouted at him, hours after Natasha had called. Tony sat in his chair in the meeting room as a stone would sit upon its foundation. Tony glanced up at Steve, unimpressed at Steve’s antics. “Where is he?”

“I’ll show you.” Tony didn’t see the hurt of telling Steve. It wasn’t like he could get into the cell anyways. Tony thought himself as cool headed in this situation now that he knew that Natasha would help.

Steve wasn’t expecting that answer, so he was thrown off his balance. He let his fists drop their hold and exhaled a heavy breath. He followed Tony, still wary of him, but in silence. Tony knocked on the door of Bucky’s cell and a screen blinked to life from beneath his knuckles. It worked like a window to see through the door. Bucky sat on the ground with his head inclined backward, staring up at the ceiling. His shoulder was still attached to the wall to his lower side. Steve peered through and his jaw clenched. “Let me in,” he demanded.

“Not yet.” Tony waved his hand over the window to have it disappear again. He faced Steve and chewed his bottom lip. “I want to show you something first. You have to see it.”

Steve’s voice went low, “Tony…”

“No seriously, you have to see it.” Tony nodded his head in the other direction to follow. Steve grimaced toward Bucky’s cell but trailed behind Tony nevertheless.

They walked into the meeting room and Tony asked FRIDAY to pull down a monitor from the ceiling. The AI complied and the two of them took a seat on either side of the table. The screen flickered to a camera feed of the lab where Val was monitored. Helen helped Val treat her sore throat with salty water and other homemade remedies like teas. Val had regained more of her voice since then, but she only spoke once she was spoken to.

She sat with boredom. Her hand was pressed against her cheek and her eyes heavy in front of Natasha. Natasha had her hands folded on top of the table between them with a cool face. Steve glanced toward Tony at the sight of Natasha but Tony just nodded at the screen.

Natasha cleared her throat. “Vivian Dang, I heard you go by Val. Can I call you that? Also... I’m curious: why the name change to Vallia?” 

“I don’t mind from a pretty lady.” Val shot Natasha a wink. Both Tony’s and Steve’s eyebrows shot up at the response but neither of them commented on it. Val sighed, “There are a lot of Vivian Dangs in the world and I just came up with Vallia when I was six and it stuck.”

Natasha’s lip pulled into a half smile. “I’m Natasha Romanov, by the way. Tony asked me to evaluate you. I’ll ask some basic questions about you first. Family members?”

Val was more than willingly to comply. “Mom’s name is Isabelle, Dad’s Alexander and I… I had an older brother, Percy.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-seven and still counting.”

“What did you study in college?”

“I did astrobiology, astrophysics, and planetary geology.” She listed off her majors with her fingers. With a smug grin, she added, “I grew up daydreaming about the stars, now I can create man-made ones of my own. Isn’t it poetic?”

Steve turned to Tony and bluntly asked, “Is she… is she sauced?”

Tony frowned at the odd choice of words but he understood what Steve was getting at. Sometimes, you might forget that Steve was from another age in time with their own slang for high. Tony shook his head. “She isn’t. She shouldn’t be. Her vitals are as normal; Helen didn’t give her anything to make her behave anything like that…” He trailed off with a frown on his lips while he thought. Tony suddenly called out to FRIDAY, “Show this feed to Buck.” The female Irish voice of the AI replied with “On it” and did what Tony had asked.

Steve gave him a crude look and he opened his mouth to protest, but Tony cut him off. “He needs to see what he has done.”

Bucky heard her before he saw Val’s face. She had a lovely laugh, soft and genuine, full of life. She sounded like herself when they had met. He somehow made Val laugh in their time together and he didn’t want to stop making her laugh because he felt this gush of pride every time she let loose a giggle.

He lifted his head to find the source of her laughter to see the wall in front of him had changed. It had projected video feed of her and a certain red-headed Avenger in front of her. Val didn’t seem to be in harm or in danger in any way and she knew that. She gave Natasha a grin after her laugh ceased. Her eyes are cold, Bucky had thought, she’s not happy. And of course, she wasn’t happy. As far as Val was concerned, Bucky was the problem and she was taken against her will to a foreign place with strange people. Bucky didn’t want to see this. He didn’t want to see her so… not her.

Natasha decided to change the subject. “So… I heard that you were in Greece during the Acropolis Lightshow-”

“That’s what they’re calling it?” Val sighed, suddenly looking sullen. “That’s a nice way to say genocide.”

Val had never explained what happened in Greece to Bucky during the month they spent together in Romania. She only mentioned that she had killed her only older brother. Bucky had seen the footage of the Acropolis Lightshow- the entire world had seen it. It was a devastating feat that killed hundreds of Greeks and tourists.

“Was it intentional?” Val puffed out her cheeks with her eyes narrowed. She shook her head to answer Natasha’s question. “Then it was genocide.” Natasha asked, “Why were you there in the first place? What happened?” 

“My brother was a painter. He traveled the world for inspiration and created masterpieces,” she explained slowly. “Greece was on his Map of Art he called it…” Val hesitated and lowered her eyes. She chewed on her lip, feeling her eyes water at the thought. Her voice cracked more than usual as she continued. “Long story short, we went to Acropolis and I turned to stone. It broke away and I suddenly had powers. Everything went downhill and he died along with others.”

“How did you turn to stone?” A logical question, and a very good one. None of the Avengers knew what Val had meant by that phrase.

Val shrugged her shoulders. “I’m just as clueless as you are. It just happened and I felt like I was dying.”

Bucky watched as Val shifted uncomfortably in her seat, squirming under Natasha’s intense gaze. “And then you met Bucky. How’d that happen?”

Val stopped moving and she remained still. She sat proper and upright with narrowed eyes. “I ran into him while SHIELD was chasing me. After the Acropolis Lightshow,” she mocked the name with a scoff, “SHIELD and Hydra were after me and he saved me from getting caught. Took me in for a month before he deserted me. Hydra found me and showed me the truth.”

Natasha argued, “Hydra is a terrorist organization, formed by Nazi’s-”

“Only a fraction of it. That’s not the part where I am associated with. Hydra’s more complex than bloody Nazis. It predates World War 2.” Val released a sigh and switched the subject. “And although the Winter Soldier was one of Hydra’s greatest assets, he has proven to be unreliable.”

Natasha was quick to counter. “No thanks to the brainwashing that he had sustained because of Hydra.”

Val lifted an eyebrow at Natasha. “Why are you defending him? Nevermind... I think that it was because that he helped you train to be what you are today in the Red Room.”

Steve and Tony both shared confusion on their faces and when they looked upon the other for an answer, they were disappointed to see that there weren’t any.

Natasha was caught off guard that Hydra felt the need to tell her this, although her face remained stoic. “That is true, Val. He did train me, but that is not why I’m defending him.”

Val cocked her head to the side. “Does he even remember you?”

“I don’t know at this point.”

Bucky was unable to communicate with them. He was unable to apologize Natasha for not remembering her, but he did have a hazy picture of what the Red Room. He remembered how they temporarily retasked him to train young Russian girls to be just like him, only better so the world would never see them coming.

Val pressed on, leaning closer and closer towards Natasha. “Does it aggravate you that he’s there, but not there at all? Did you love him?”

Natasha didn’t hesitate to answer. “Did you?”

Bucky’s mouth fell ajar and he wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing, neither did Tony or Steve. Val clamped her mouth shut and eased back into her seat. The part that terrified him the most was that she didn’t answer Natasha. Quite unexpectedly, Tony told FRIDAY to cut off the feed to Bucky. Val’s face disappeared from the wall in Bucky’s cell.

Steve turned his chair towards Tony. “What point were you trying to prove?”

Tony rubbed his forehead. “That they need help.” His words came out fast and rushed, so they melted together. He couldn’t believe what he was saying. “They both were, uh, changed by Hydra: Bucky into the Winter Soldier and Val into whatever the hell she is now -is she actually high? Whatever. What matters is that I will keep my mouth shut and I will help you to help them.”

Steve blinked at Tony. He shifted in his black chair. His broad upper body a bit too big for the chair to handle- for anything to handle for that matter. “This doesn’t… you don’t make sense.”

“I just want this to end,” Tony dramatically sighed. “No more fighting. I already drove apart the Avengers with Ultron and I destroyed the New Avengers. Can’t we just compromise and bring the team back together?”

Steve’s head went into a nod. “Thank you, Tony. That means a lot, and I’m sorry for-”

“Let’s not talk about that.” Tony held up his hand to cut off Steve. Dwelling on those thoughts about Bucky killing his parents- his mother- might change his mind again. “Yeah, yeah let’s bring this family back together.”

“No can do,” Steve gravely said. The wide smile that formed on Tony’s face suddenly melted at Steve. His mere look asked Steve to explain. Steve lowered his head for a pause before he tried again. “Tony, we’re still fugitives. Nothing’s going to change that until the Sokovia Accords are gone and the hundred and seventeen countries learn to accept our help. I have to protect them... from everyone.”

Tony scoffed, “Why does it feel like after we made up, you’re breaking up with me all over again?”

Steve actually laughed. It wasn’t hard, nor did it last long, but it brought a smile to his eyes and he chuckled quite a bit. “I don’t know, Tony… I don’t know…”

A knock came from outside of the meeting room. Steve swiveled in his chair to spot their new guest, Natasha. She waltzed in without another knock and the two men lifted themselves to their feet. She outright ignored Tony’s presence and provided her full attention to Steve. She gave him that small curve of a knowing smile which made her eyes crinkle once they sized each other up. Steve still looked the same- hell, he was ninety-seven years old and still looked like he was thirty. Natasha’s notable red hair was in the same fashion the last time they had seen each other during the war. The only thing different about her was that she sported a white jacket on top of her usual dark attire.

“Hey Steve,” she said with her deep raspy voice.

Steve couldn’t help but smile at her. “Hi, Nat.”

Tony wondered why they just didn’t hug or kiss like normal reconciling people, but then again… they were far from normal. Since they were gazing oh so lovingly into each other’s eyes, Tony felt the impulse to roll his own. He cleared his throat, “Great to see you, Nat.”

She glanced over her shoulder at Tony, as if it was the first time she had spotted him. “Yeah, it’s… just great to be back, to be honest. You guys obviously missed me.” The both of them chuckled, saying ‘no’ and ‘of course not’ but Natasha wouldn’t have it. “Well, maybe not you so much, Tony, but Steve…” She faced him again- cocky smile and all, “...well you’re supposed to always have your partner’s back.”

“I’m gagging.” Tony managed to fake one and he pointed his finger to his throat.

Steve shook his head while he chuckled. “All right Tony, we get it. You being childish is your natural instinct.”

“Damn right it is.”

Natasha took Steve’s wrist in her hand and she led him out the door of the meeting room. She called over her shoulder, “Don’t mind if I steal him for a bit?” to Tony and he yelled at her “You already are!”

Once they were out of sight of the meeting room and into the hallways of the New Avengers Facility, Natasha dropped her hold on Steve. He didn’t mind because she had just rescued him from any more awkward conversations with Tony. Steve realized that she was taking him the same way that Tony did towards Bucky’s cell. He glanced at her warily, but she pressed on. “I’m going to talk to him,” she said with determination. “I want to… I want to understand.”

“I do too,” Steve admitted. “It all seems to be about Val for him. He never mentioned her after the war… hell, I didn’t know what we were doing in Bucharest until I saw her. He did all of this for her.”

“I wonder why,” she remarked, “Val is intent to kill Bucky because she thinks it is the right thing to do…” She shook her head. “Tony told me that you were going to watch the evaluation.”

“And what did you get?”

Natasha lifted her hand to shake for a notion of ‘iffy’. She tilted a little to the sides to emphasize her point. “She has potential; we just have to fix her up like an old car and polish her.”

“Potential,” Steve repeated with his voice low. He crinkled up his nose. “You can’t be serious. We are not recruiting her.”

“Why not?” Natasha shrugged her shoulders. “She’s like the twins with a little bit of Bucky in her. She has the potential to be an Avenger if we help her. If we don’t, she’s just another soldier for Hydra to control.”

Steve’s skin crawled. He didn’t want Val on his Avengers team at all. He didn’t know her, sure, and she didn’t know him. When the Avengers were formed, they were thrown together in the midst of chaos and they almost collapsed. Steve would need time to get a notion from Val; her true personality, her loyalties, her powers all would have to be addressed. And another simple fact: he didn’t like her.

She attempted to kill Bucky and Steve watched, bounded by his friend’s demand. Val was erratic and eerily calm at the same time and it rubbed Steve the wrong way. How could someone possibly be like that? He could only imagine Val plotting revenge schemes against Bucky and what terrified Steve the most was that she wouldn’t care who got in the way to get what she wanted. It was only a matter of time before she decided to act upon her ploy.

Once they had reached the door, Natasha cleared her throat to explain. “FRIDAY, let us in, Tony cleared us.” The AI complied silently and the door pushed open in front of them. They stepped through to see Bucky still sitting on the floor, lost in his own mind. He raised his eyes to meet them. Natasha went in front of Steve, drawing closer to Bucky. Softly, she asked, “Do you remember me?”

Of all the questions she could have asked Bucky, Steve thought, she chose that. Steve couldn’t blame her for wondering. He too was desperate once for Bucky’s past memories.

Bucky winced, pulling away from Natasha. She watched him still, eyes calculating while he jetted out his tongue to wet his lips before he could answer. “I…” They could see the internal battle within him written in the way he contorted his face. “I saw your hair,” he sounded so sure this time. “You had it in a ponytail and it was like fire… you stood with the other girls in a line in front of a mirror… we were in a studio…” He drifted off, turning his head to the side but Natasha caught his attention again with an abrupt “Hey!” and Bucky continued, “You were the best.”

“That’s all?” She didn’t sound disappointed with him, more concerned really. “Is there nothing else?”

Bucky shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

Steve saw that Natasha clenched her jaw but she nodded her head with understanding. “I suppose that it would be best if you don’t recall everything there…” She turned her head to look up at the ceiling. “FRIDAY, be a dear and let Bucky go.”

The magnet that held Bucky in place against the wall released its hold against him. He shrugged his shoulder and rested his hand on his shoulder to rub the soreness. Bucky rose to his feet and followed Steve and Natasha from his cell that Tony had designed for him. He found himself trailing behind their pace and out of their conversation until he heard Val’s name.

“You’re going to what, Nat?” Steve gaped at her for even suggesting a thing.

“I’m being serious, Steve,” She regarded him with an annoyed look. “Val’s life has changed, you just can’t expect her to walk out of here whole.”

Bucky frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Steve pursed his lips and glanced back at Bucky. “Nat thinks that we should recruit Val into the Avengers. I just don’t think-”

“She’d be a good fit.” Bucky blinked in surprise at how confident he felt about this. He even wondered how he knew that she would be, but he kept going. “Steve, she’s a good person. Always have been. Val cares an awful lot about doing the right thing… she-she must be tortured right now.”

Steve heaved in a breath but he refused to make another statement about his views. Natasha stopped in front of the entrance of the Avengers Facility before the two men even realized that she led them there. She turned around to face them both with proud green eyes. “I’m going to find out if that is completely true. I’ll drop by her parent’s house and figure out who Val really is- something that you can’t really get a feel of by just stalking online- and how extensively damaged she is. No matter what, we have to rebuild the Avengers and I’m hoping that Val would be our solution. It’s us against the world now and we need each other.”

The entire time she had spoken, she never once wavered her sight from Steve. He managed to pull on a smile for her despite thinking about the others in Wakanda and how they still weren’t free from the authorities. “All right. If that is what it takes, that is what it takes. Come back soon, we need you.” He stepped forward and dipped down to plant a kiss on her cheek, which she fully embraced with a half-smile.

Natasha huffed, “You missed.” Without another word, she gave them one last smile before she left the facility.

Steve faced Bucky to see his best friend sniggering behind his back. Steve rolled his eyes at him and scoffed, “Quit it.”

“You’d think that Captain America would have the guts…” Bucky let out a harder laugh when Steve clapped his hand on his back and for a moment… everything was fine. It was sort of normal. They had forgotten about the problems that plagued them for just one moment.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any questions or just want to talk to me, please contact my [tumblr](http://nilliad.tumblr.com) (because I'm more active on there). Please leave kudos if you like the story and comment!


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